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Your Journey Ends: A Parting Retrospective on Dragon Age

IX. Freedom To Live

We all know how The Veilguard turned out, and how it wasn’t the sequel I had hoped for after a decade of waiting. Now BioWare dangles by a thread, a shadow of a shadow of its former self. Dragon Age is over, and it didn’t go out gracefully. What now? Can I look at the previous titles, which each meant so much to me in their own unique ways, without feeling pangs of sadness? Has the pain of knowing how this all winds up changed them?

#planckstorytime #writing #analysis #essay #dragon age #dragon age inquisition #dragon age origins #dragon age 2 #dragon age the veilguard #datv critical #the inquisitor #the warden #hawke #solavellan #trick weekes #sheryl chee #bioware #solas #dai

Your Journey Ends: A Parting Retrospective on Dragon Age (Part Eight)

VIII. Rescue From Without

I feel like I still haven’t explained why Inquisition is my favorite in the series. Sure, I listed many of its qualities and explained some of its hidden depth, but I could do the same for the other two if I really forced myself to emphasize the positive. Something predisposes me to looking on the third game with fonder eyes. I think that comes from my first experience with it.

Your Journey Ends: A Parting Retrospective on Dragon Age (Part Seven)

VII. A Higher Power

Dragon Age: Inquisition’s core tension lies in the aperture between faith and falsehood – or alternatively, authenticity vs artificiality. Throughout the story, the newly formed Inquisition manipulates the populace’s faith for its own ends. Josephine and Leliana both allow rumors to grow about the so-called Herald of Andraste’s divine ordainment in order to garner support. With the religious establishment in shambles and the southern countries too tied up in their own conflicts (like the Mage-Templar War or the Orlesian Civil War) to respond to the threat of the Breach, people start looking for hope wherever they can find it. Early on, the player can discover a small cult that’s begun worshiping the Breach out in the Hinterlands. In sealing a nearby Fade rift, the Inquisition can absorb this cult into their own power structure. A similar feat in the Fallow Mire convinces an Avvar Sky Watcher that the Herald was sent by their own deity, the Lady of the Skies, and earns his loyalty. From the beginning, Inquisition emphasizes the persuasive effects of faith and how it’s used to magnify power. As it goes along, further questions arise from this. Do noble goals justify the manipulation of faith, or will people naturally see what they want to see anyway? Can a historically oppressive power be transformed into something revolutionary, as mage or elven Inquisitors might try to do with their Chantry-based Inquisition? Is this power, founded on dubious grounds, legitimate in representing the people’s best interest, or is it doomed to become corrupt and seed new injustices? The later sections of Inquisition interrogate these questions.

A more fulfilled character arc can be found in the Iron Bull. Known among his Ben-Hassrath cohorts as “Hissrad” (“liar”), Bull works as a spy for the Qun under the front of leading a mercenary company. The player is always meant to question how much of Bull’s boisterous bravado is genuine, and how much is a calculated part of his act. Where does the fun-loving mercenary end and the government spy begin? He’s slid into a role, but it’s a role that fits him, and one where he’s happy. From this situation arises Bull’s identity crisis: he thinks that he’s the king of subterfuge, but in actuality, he might already be a Tal-Vashoth (Qun deserter) deep down, still wearing the mask of a loyal agent. Bull judges Tal-Vashoth as savages with uncontrollable impulses and rage, and thus relies on the Qun’s teachings for security. But he finds that comfort and security among his boys in the Bull’s Chargers, especially Krem. Krem, a transgender man, prompts Bull to explain the concept of “aqun-athlok” to justify the apparent inconsistency between Bull’s acceptance of a trans identities and the rigid gender roles of the Qun, as defined in Origins. According to Bull, because Krem fights as a soldier, which is a man’s job, that makes him a man. I personally believe this works better not as hard canon for standard qunari treatment of transgender people (though The Veilguard would codify it as so regardless), and instead prefer to view it as Bull trying to reconcile his two identities. I don’t believe the Qun’s regressive gender politics need to be rehabilitated (they are, after all, a totalitarian government), and I think this reading emphasizes Bull’s love and respect for Krem, as well as his gravitation away from his role as a Ben-Hassrath tool. Bull’s own story can be interpreted through the lens of a queer reading. Should the player choose to save Bull’s Chargers, thereby betraying the qunari alliance and branding Bull a Tal-Vashoth, the Inquisitor can insist that his name is no longer “Hissrad” and affirms that he is “the Iron Bull.” On this path, Bull rejects the identity his society assigned him during his youth and strikes out on a new path – with a name of his choosing. In doing so, he comes to terms with the fact that he’s been Tal-Vashoth for a while now: the authentic Bull was always the mercenary captain, not the spy pretending to be one. The alternative path, where Bull remains loyal to the Qun, sees him betray the Inquisitor and die during the events of the “Trespasser” expansion. Resolving his identity crisis is literally a mortal ultimatum.

Your Journey Ends: A Parting Retrospective on Dragon Age (Part Six)

VI. Apotheosis

At a glance, Dragon Age: Inquisition is deeply flawed. The open world, while wide and vibrant, lacks direction in its quest design, with no clear distinction between which quests are rewarding or interesting amid a sea of chores. Skipping the open world entirely, however, robs the player of vital character interactions, lore tidbits, atmosphere, and overall makes the game feel too brief. Thus, there is a problem of not knowing which quests are worth spending your time on, and how much. It doesn’t help that mounts are virtually useless for traversing these vast regions. The war table operations present interesting quests with compelling decision-making opportunities, but their timed nature stifles them, gutting their potential. Combat has shifted even more toward real-time action, and the tactical macros are more limited than ever. Even in the otherwise excellent main story, issues arise. Namely, the main villain loses all semblance of menace after the first encounter with him.

With all of that said, you might wonder why Dragon Age: Inquisition is my favorite game in the series, why it’s one of my favorite games of all time, why I’ve logged almost 500 hours in it across multiple playthroughs, and why it’s my main impetus for writing this essay. The answer is complicated, and has as much to do with my own state of mind at the time that it came out as it does with the game’s intrinsic qualities.

Your Journey Ends: A Parting Retrospective on Dragon Age (Part Five)

V. There Can Be No Peace

In keeping with the alliterative naming scheme we devised for Origins with “death vs defiance”, I’d like to propose that Dragon Age II’s core thematic tension is between freedom and futility. Numerous characters and groups strive to secure better futures for themselves, often risking their lives for the promise of freedom. Yet time and again, these efforts are met with failure. Very few of Dragon Age II’s stories have happy endings. Whereas Origins usually gave the player ideal ways to resolve quests (expelling Connor’s demon with the help of the Circle, breaking the werewolf curse, etc.) and gave opportunities for each of its major characters to come out on top in the end, DA2, by contrast, drags its characters further down the more they struggle. Whether undone through their own faults or plagued by misfortune, characters in Dragon Age II, despite their earnest efforts to achieve freedom and sanctuary, often end their journeys worse off than when they started.

Your Journey Ends: A Parting Retrospective on Dragon Age (Part Four)

IV. The Abyss

I didn’t like Dragon Age II when it released in 2011. I think a lot of fans felt similarly. In recent years, it’s received something of a reappraisal, and while there are elements I appreciate more now, I find it’s still a deeply flawed, often frustrating game. Though it’s amusing to think that even in the series’s infancy, my relationship with it was complicated, to say the least. Origins set a high bar, and DA2 gave us a game that was neither what most expected nor wanted.

Developed from concept to completion in less than a year and a half, Dragon Age II became known as one of the genre’s most infamous rush jobs. Even looking at the earliest marketing materials, I could feel the roleplaying elements being downgraded. You could only play as a human now, and one with a static backstory. The entire playtime would be spent in a single city, rather than a sprawling cross-country adventure. Early ad copy encouraged players to “think like a general, fight like a Spartan” – which I found so awkwardly inappropriate and testosterone-driven that it was laughable. I quickly succumbed to a cycle of negativity (and eventual schadenfreude) as the marketing campaign progressed.

Your Journey Ends: A Parting Retrospective on Dragon Age (Part Three)

III. In Death, Sacrifice

Perhaps owing to the strengths of its roleplaying mechanics and the degree of agency afforded to the player to craft the story, Origins might be the most thematically tenuous of the first three entries. Disparate outcomes to scenarios confound most attempts to synthesize some sort of deeper meaning (if you believe in that sort of thing). However, recurrent themes, motifs, and conflicts still persist as the basis for many of the events that otherwise unfold at the player’s discretion.

Chief among these ideas is the tension between the inevitability of death and how characters go about defying it. The threat of death looms throughout Origins, as the impending Fifth Blight prepares to ravage all of Fereldan. It’s palpable as soon as you enter the village of Lothering: Death is on his way; he’s just waiting to get his travel papers stamped.

The story’s major agents are those that have contended with, or currently are contending with, their relationship with death. For some of them, the threat of death is a constant companion. Fan favorite Morrigan espouses a strict survivalist mentality, believing that the weak are not worth saving, and that a person should take advantage of every opportunity to strengthen their position in the face of a hostile world. She’s not the only one with a brutal worldview. Sten lives with the shame of losing both his sword (without which he will be slain on sight upon returning to his homeland) and his temper, having butchered an innocent family of farmers. With a disgraceful death awaiting his homecoming, he chooses to seek a more virtuous end by fighting against the Blight. Similarly, the Legion of the Dead among the dwarves holds preemptive funerals for its soldiers before marching them into the Deep Roads to face certain doom at the hands of darkspawn. The perky dwarf companion Sigrun embraces this fate, seeking to face her predetermined death head-on. Death’s allure also calls to Leliana. She danced with death regularly in her former life as a bard and spy for the Orlesian court, reveling in the mortal thrill of the fanged pageantry. However, after being betrayed and tortured, she was miraculously blessed with a second chance at life, which she uses as an opportunity to start over as a kinder, gentler soul.

Your Journey Ends: A Parting Retrospective on Dragon Age (Part Two)

II. The Threshold

Being more of a Star Wars aficionado as a kid than a pen-and-paper fan, I was first introduced to western RPGs through BioWare’s Knights of the Old Republic (2003). Admittedly, I didn’t immediately grasp the mechanics (it would take years for me to understand what Armor Class or Will Save meant), but the opportunity to immerse myself in a fictional universe with a story that I could mold through dialogue exhilarated me. It was one of those special feelings that I’ve yearned to recapture for the rest of my life.

My relationship with BioWare games further blossomed with the release of 2007’s Mass Effect, the start of a series that would go on to be one of my favorites and equally as important to me as Dragon Age. While Mass Effect sought to take the roleplaying genre in a more setpiece-driven, action-oriented, cinematic space, the studio shortly thereafter released Dragon Age: Origins (2009) to cater to the more traditional RPG sensibilities: methodical pause-based tactical combat, sandbox narrative design, and your all-important +1 rings. For me, the two approaches to a modern RPG – the progressive action vs the traditional throwback – worked in harmony. I loved Origins. Even at the time of release, the whole game exuded nostalgic charm. Imagine playing it, taking in its stony interiors, crackling torches, and earthy color palette, all while the crisp autumn winds hum outside. That’s the Origins that exists in my memory.

Your Journey Ends: A Parting Retrospective on Dragon Age (Part One)

*The following contains spoilers*

“One day, someone will summarize the terrible events of your life so quickly.”

– Flemeth, Dragon Age: Inquisition (2014)

I. The Calling

At the end of my previous essay on Dragon Age: The Veilguard (2024), I alluded to the fact that I wished to return to the first threegames in the franchise to see if they still occupied the same spaces of import for me as before. In that time, BioWare’s workforce experienced even more cuts. Many of the creative leads of the Dragon Age team, including lead writer Trick Weekes, were laid off after The Veilguard failed to meet EA’s (frankly unreasonable) estimations. Former writer Sheryl Chee insisted that “DA isn’t dead because it’s yours now.” Which radiates that “farm upstate” euphemistic aura that confirms it is, in fact, dead. At the very least, I wouldn’t expect to see the franchise again in the next decade, and perhaps that’s for the best.

For all of its faults, The Veilguard wrapped up most of the major story threads. Artificially extending the series’s life might be crueler than mercifully euthanizing it. But where does that leave us? More importantly, where does that leave me? These developments definitely complicate the already difficult emotions embroiling my proposed retrospective. I’m not sure what answers I expect to find on artistic epitaphs, but there is a comfort in knowing the absolute extent of an experience – that, barring supplementary materials, these four installments represent the totality of Dragon Age’s lifespan. The absence of an unknown component makes the text feel familiar, friendly, even among parts I previously found distasteful. Death has a wondrous effect on perspective, turning the sweetness bitter and bitterness sweet. That somberness lingers, but along with it comes a previously unknown appreciation.

Having already thoroughly covered my feelings on The Veilguard, I intend to revisit each of the first three games, one at a time, and provide both an analysis of their major themes as well as a reflection of my own relationship to the works in question. The latter point is especially relevant. Dragon Age has stuck with me through the best and worst parts of my life, and my perspective on it has shifted and flipped multiple times. In order to understand its personal significance, we will need to catalog this changing relationship sequentially – and then, maybe we can determine why, after all of its faux pas and disappointments, it still matters.

Full article: https://planckstorytime.wordpress.com/2025/03/29/your-journey-ends-a-parting-retrospective-on-dragon-age/

Dragon Age: The Veilguard: Strangled by Gentle Hands

*The following contains spoilers*

“You would risk everything you have in the hope that the future is better? What if it isn’t? What if you wake up to find the future you shaped is worse than what was?”

– Solas, Dragon Age: Inquisition (2014)

I. Whatever It Takes

My premium tickets for a local film festival crumpled and dissolved in my pants pocket, unredeemed as they swirled in the washing machine. Throughout that October weekend in 2015, I neglected my celebratory privileges, my social visits to friends, and even my brutal honors literary theory class. All because a golden opportunity stretched before me: a job opening for a writing position at the once-legendary BioWare, with an impending deadline.

The application process wasn’t like anything I’d seen before. Rather than copy+paste a cover letter and quickly swap out a couple of nouns here and there, this opening required me to demonstrate my proficiency in both words and characters – namely, BioWare’s characters. Fanfiction wasn’t normally in my wheelhouse – at the time, I had taken mainly to spinning love sonnets (with a miserable success rate). But I wouldn’t balk at this chance to work on one of my dream franchises – especially since the job prospects for fresh English BAs weren’t exactly promising. So, I got to work crafting a branching narrative based on the company’s most recent title: Dragon Age: Inquisition. Barely two months prior, I saw the conclusion of that cast’s story when the Inquisitor stabbed a knife into a map and swore to hunt her former ally, Solas, to the ends of the earth. Now it was my turn to puppeteer them, to replicate the distinct voice of each party member and account for how they’d react to the scenario I crafted. And if it went well, then maybe I’d be at the tip of the spear on that hunt for Solas. Finishing the writing sprint left me exhausted, but also proud of my work.

The folks at BioWare obviously felt differently, because I received a rejection letter less than a week later. Maybe they found my story trite and my characterization inaccurate, or maybe they just didn’t want to hire a student with no professional experience to his name. Regardless, I was devastated. It wouldn’t be until years later that I learned that, had my application been accepted, I likely would’ve been drafted into working on the studio’s ill-fated looter shooter, Anthem (2019), noteworthy for its crunch and mismanagement. My serendipitous rejection revealed that sometimes the future you strive to build was never meant to match your dreams. What seemed like an opportunity to strike oil actually turned out to be a catastrophic spill.

Still, my passion for the Dragon Age series (as well as Mass Effect) persisted in the face of BioWare’s apparent decline. I maintain that Inquisition is actually one of the studio’s best games, and my favorite in the series, to the point where I even dressed up as Cole for a convention one time. The game came to me at a very sensitive time in my life, and its themes of faith vs falsehood, the co-opting of movements in history, and the instability of power all spoke to me. But I will elaborate more on that at a later date. My point is, I held on to that hope that, in spite of everything, BioWare could eventually deliver a satisfactory resolution to the cliffhanger from their last title. Or perhaps it was less hope and more of a sunk cost fallacy, as an entire decade passed with nary a peep from Dragon Age.

Jesus Christ, I Hate Tumblr

So, for anyone who read the FF7 Rebirth essay on Tumblr, rather than the main site, it turns out that several paragraphs (basically ones that came before/after images) were just... not there! So the essay made no sense and a bunch of my points were completely lost! Stay classy, Tumblr. If you have any interest, please check those sections again to see the updated version. I sincerely apologize for the issue.

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth: A World Beyond Anger (Part Seven)

VII. This Isn’t About Saving the World – It’s About Me

My thoughts kept returning to the Gi tribe. Why did I find them so evocative?

In their pursuit of nonexistence, they cultivated their anguish, focusing it to corrupt a sacred relic. Their wishes and dreams could empower this materia – maybe they could’ve wished for a better life, a spot in the lifestream to accept them, or the fortitude to endure undying eons. But they didn’t. They did not want hope. They only sought deeper and deeper despair that could finally bring them the peace of oblivion. In the depths of their woe, they forged a power to bestow death to everything:

“Steeped in our one desire… Purest of materia no more… With pain and spite made black.”

Spite is one hell of a motivator. I felt so betrayed by the ending of Remake that I genuinely wanted Rebirth to be abhorrent. I stopped wishing for a game that would make me like the series as I once did, because I knew that hope just heralds disappointment. Caught between contradictory feelings of love and hate, I always felt dishonest to myself no matter what mindset I kept toward project. When I tried to be positive, I felt like I was dismissing my own hurt feelings; when I accentuated the negative, I had to force myself not to like the elements that I otherwise appreciated. I needed this internal argument silenced. Like the Gi, I couldn’t abide in limbo any longer.

A confluence of emotions got tangled up with these silly games. They mutated into a kind of cathectic reservoir, into which all the excess frustrations of my life flowed. Remake released in April of 2020. At that time, I had recently lost one of my best friends to a drug overdose. My beloved dog, whom I’d had since childhood, was dying. I had just gotten out of a long-term relationship. The United States political situation deteriorated further and further. And of course, a little thing called the COVID-19 pandemic struck. At the time, the world seemed cruel, and I resented my lot in life. I thought that the release of a piece of media that I’d anticipated for so long would help me feel better, but that escapism just resulted in more pain. With the literal years of isolation that followed (plus a nearly fatal snow storm), trapped at home and unable to see the people that I loved more than anything in the world, I just kept revisiting that disappointment, again and again. When every day is effectively the same, you endlessly repeat the same motions, the same feelings. In that manic state, FF7R became a sort of emblem for me, reminding me that I can’t have nice things and should not expect better from my life in any regard.

Life got better, though. Sort of. Daily life remains as challenging as ever, and new trials never stop emerging. At least I’m not locked up and scared anymore, though. Yet that game, and its impending follow-up, stayed stuck in my craw throughout the intervening years. I wish that I knew a less severe word for “trauma”, as I do not wish to trivialize the experiences of people who’ve suffered actual hardship – but this particular bugbear of mine acted as a conduit that would involuntarily drag me back to one of the worst periods of my life. Reliving that pain over and over, even as I turned these games into veritable lightning rods for my redirected negative energy, took its toll on me. The solution, to me, was to convince myself that I hated everything about them – that the hurt they gave me was all they ever were and all they ever would be. At least then they would be so unappealing that I’d never risk getting hurt again.

The results speak for themselves. I tried out Rebirth anyway, and it left me as conflicted as ever. This time, though, I feel like I’ve found meaning in that imbalance. I saw my petty struggle mirrored on the stage of a digital melodrama, and I gained a new perspective. The narrative focuses heavily on people and groups grappling with grief and spite, and the consequences of letting those demons consume you. Dyne’s rabid fury steers him to his end, denying him the chance of ever holding his daughter with an unsullied hand. Red XIII and Aerith both temper their impulses to maim Hojo after all the misery he’s inflicted upon them. Tifa divulges her previous desire for vengeance against Shinra, but how that hatred wasn’t sustainable. Cloud increasingly loses himself to murderous urges. Sephiroth’s new plan apparently hinges on a harvest of spite and sorrow from sufferers cursing their fates. Through these cases, Rebirth admonishes against obsessive anger, no matter how justified, because the true victim will always be the one reenacting their prior trauma. To draw from Aerith once more:

“It’s true that the pain and the anger we carry can make us stronger. But at what cost? What toll does it take? I believe true strength doesn’t come from any of that. True strength comes from our ability to forgive – to forge ahead in the hope of making things right. It comes from ourselves.”

It would be nice to have our problems solved for us – so that we had no reason to be angry to begin with. For me, that would’ve come in the form of a perfect adaptation: one with all of the charms that I love and none of the aspects that I hate. Y’know, just something made specifically for me, with no one else considered. Nobody’s that lucky, though. Not me, and certainly not the Gi:

“The Gi cannot rest until our sacred treasure has been restored to us. Moreover, in redressing the crimes of her ancestors, the Cetra may help us let go our ancient grudge.”

The only one who can let go of a grudge is the one who holds it. If the Gi got their Black Materia back, all it would accomplish is an extinction event. There’s no forgiveness there. The Gi must attain their peace through different means. Anger and depression must give way to acceptance – acceptance of others’ faults, acceptance of the reality of your situation, and acceptance of all the seemingly contradictory feelings swirling about that are, nonetheless, still yours.

I keep imagining alternate worlds. What if Square Enix had done this or that differently, and given us a better story? I can picture a game that would be easier for me to love. I see the contrast between what could have been with the real product, and it seeds dismay. Do these dreams help after a certain point? I realize that I cannot hide from my reality like Cloud does in the closing minutes of Rebirth. Contentment will never reach you when you’re holding out for something that will never happen. Hoping for a different fate gets you nowhere; despising your current one sends you backwards. When we linger on what we wish to be different, those unfulfilled desires, the futile hopes to rectify the past, invariably trap us in a state of permanent agitation. Only through embracing what we’ve experienced, the good and the bad, can we truly move beyond it.

As outlined earlier, I believe the third entry will likely flow with this theme, resolving on the cast achieving peace with themselves and their past woes. If it does not, so be it. I intend to internalize this lesson, even if Square does not. In the most unorthodox way, Rebirth spoke to me, and I will both acknowledge its flaws and consider its wisdom. I don’t think I’ll ever fully support the direction they took with this series. Maybe someday there will be a mod that serves as a “fan edit” to remove the distasteful elements. It’s halfway there, considering that most important scenes are intact, and the fact that you can skip Zack’s interludes on subsequent playthroughs. Until then, I have to accept a simple truth: I had fun, despite everything that bothered me.

At times, I frightened myself with how much I enjoyed the game. Knowing ahead of time that the ending would bite me in the ass, I even considered quitting to avoid that bitter sting. I thought, “What’s the point in pressing on if it all ends in disappointment?” Well, what’s the point in living, then? Sometimes we’re so afraid of pain that we would deny any chance of joy along with it. You could guess that such impulses might arise from our death drives, a primal push towards stasis.

No, I choose pleasure in the end. I choose life. Even if you know it will eventually end, I think there’s value in the transient moments of bliss. Just as it’s worth it to bond with a fictional flower girl, even knowing her tragic fate, because that story is worth experiencing regardless.

Believe me, the last thing I expected to get out of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, given my history,was a message about how life is worth living. You can’t wallow in impossible dreams, you can’t stew in impotent rage, and you can’t give in to a wish for nothingness. You must cherish what you love and accept that one day, it will fade. Nevertheless, it was real.

I won’t let my agreement or disagreement with Square’s story decisions dictate my enjoyment on principle anymore. Maybe the next game will stick the landing. Maybe not. Going by past performance, it’s likely to get 90% of the way there and then trip at the finish line. My cautiously optimistic outlook from my previous essay did not stick with me, so I cannot say that my uncharacteristically harmonious relationship with Rebirth will persevere either. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from this ordeal, it’s that unexpected outcomes occur precisely because you don’t know everything. Either way, I’ll be back here in three or four years. Until then, I’ll do my best to live in the moment and be true to my feelings as they are now.

– Hunter Galbraith

Interview translations credit to @aitaikimochi and @ShinraArch.

Further Reading

Freud, Sigmund, et al. Beyond the Pleasure Principle. Norton, 1989.

FULL ESSAY: https://planckstorytime.wordpress.com/2024/05/11/final-fantasy-vii-rebirth-a-world-beyond-anger/

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth: A World Beyond Anger (Part Six)

VI. … And Why It Doesn’t Matter

You thought I was done complaining? No, never.

Doubtless someone will punch holes in my theory, and I wouldn’t even feign indignation. The truth is that none of the explanations posed by fans have established a coherent story. But the fact that this is where our attention has been directed – away from the emotional moments that give stories relevance in the first place – exposes the shallowness of this trade-off. Even if my desired theory comes to fruition, I don’t think it redeems Rebirth’s rendition of Aerith’s death.

The consistency, or lack thereof, between the obnoxious multiverse stuff and the franchise’s established lore ultimately matters little when you’ve already squandered that critical moment that makes us care. From whatever universe you view it, Rebirth demonstrates a puzzling ambivalence to Aerith’s passing. The impact of loss never lands, because moments later you have Zack stepping in for a tag-team match with Cloud against Sephiroth. It’s framed as some fist-pumping “fuck yeah” moment, complete with embarrassingly out-of-place musical callbacks and quotes from Crisis Core (2007). It doesn’t feel like purposeful whiplash to create a sense of disorientation, but rather completely tone-deaf and disrespectful fanservice, all during a moment that should leave the player feeling hollow. And no sooner has Aerith left the building than she rises again like the goddamn Undertaker, kicking ass and eliminating any modicum of loss. Whether she’s in the lifestream or a parallel timeline or a phantom of Cloud’s addled mind is a distinction without a difference. Her death – and perhaps all death in the series – has lost its significance, because it feels merely inconvenient.

Hironobu Sakaguchi, creator of the Final Fantasy series and story planner for the original FF7, channeled the pain and shock of his mother’s death into the loss of Aerith. Where once there was a source of joy, now there is only a void that will never be filled. In the original game, you’ll always have that empty slot on your party selection screen to remind you of who you’re missing. It’s an aching, uncomfortable treatment of death in fiction that was unconventional for its medium at the time. It cut straight to players’ hearts. With this is mind, does Rebirth capture anything remotely comparable? Should we call Sakaguchi and tell him his mom is still kicking somewhere?

When asked about the scene by Game Informer, Nomura had this to say:

“Prior to Final Fantasy VII, there have been other titles where characters have experienced tragedy, but many of them have come back or been revived in some ways. But I believe that loss is something that happens unexpectedly, and it’s not something so dramatic or drawn out, but is something in which a person that you have just conversed with is suddenly gone and never to come back. I believe that the person who dies should not return in this title, and that is what we did with the original… I do believe that the way we have depicted it brings about a new emotion and a new feeling for both players who have played the original Final Fantasy VII and newcomers.”

I struggle to conceive what this “new emotion” could be. Bewilderment? I can’t imagine another response when the developers diminish the tragedy of a lost friend because they want you to be more invested in keeping track of the stupid cartoon dog! Nothing can rationalize the cluttering of this sequence with a shell game that asks us to follow the Black/White/Clear Materia. This sequence, and the events immediately leading up to it, should not have been reduced to a gimmick of prestidigitation. We’re not wondering what we’ll do without Aerith – we’re wondering which sleeve she’s hiding in, so to speak. All of these unnecessary contrivances dare you to solve them, encourage you to switch off your Lizard Brain. But if you turn off your Lizard Brain and welcome those higher mammal functions, you’re bound to see how stupid all of this truly is. For Christ’s sake, we’re naming these worlds after dog breeds! Is that really worth what we’ve lost?

Mechanically-speaking, too, I feel the 1997 game better executed the subsequent battle. There’s an often overlooked quality of the Jenova LIFE fight: It’s really easy. Equip the Water Ring you picked up five minutes earlier and you’ve essentially won the fight. This works really well because you’re not supposed to be thinking hard about strategy and tactics or rocking out to Jenova’s awesome theme song – the battle just gives you time to chew on what’s happened, all the while Aerith’s theme softly rings in your ears. Rebirth gives you a complicated, high-flying, multi-stage boss fight that drops your dead friend’s musical motif midway through. Now, your party is dropkicking an eldritch monster and shouting quips, while electric guitars and synths blare in the background. You need to be actively paying attention for the hour-long boss gauntlet that follows, and it feels wrong to me. I didn’t party wipe; I’m not bad at this game (I beat Gilgamesh at level 49, prior to the endgame) – but micromanaging a chaotic battle drains what little emotion remained. I just felt numb in between fits of laughter.

That is to say, the ending of Rebirth feels like a trip to the dentist.

New mysteries take priority over an earnest portrayal of events, and I just don’t think they’re compelling enough to warrant that. Our knowledge of them has barely advanced since part one. We knew going in that Zack was in a different world, denoted by a different Stamp. And now we know… that there are different worlds denoted by different Stamps. For all the rigmarole, we learned shockingly little. The mystery didn’t really progress, aside from showcasing such a circus of inconsistencies that we’re basically forced to accept that it operates on dream logic. The true ending remains to be seen, but if the clues only amount to “the clues not adding up”, then I’d say that this plotline hasn’t felt rewarding.

My gut tells me this all leads to a cul-de-sac. I judge these riddles as cynical mystery boxes with little concrete direction. Rebirth backtracks on several of Remake’s more audacious changes, completely dropping plot points in some cases. I suspect the final game will do the same, and we’ll have something approaching the original. After all, this “adds up” to Advent Children, by Kitase’s admission. The man likewise expressed that the story will likely be adjusted based on audiences’ responses to the ending of the second part. Given that the narrative disruptions have had mixed reactions at best this time, I believe it’s fair to guess that we’re just looping back to the OG plot anyway.

With all of this in mind, attempting to unravel these unknown elements seems like a massive waste of time. I don’t find this ending quite as intolerable as that of Remake, but it still comes off as tacky and desperate. I think the third part will likely still be fun and contain many of the great moments from the latter half of the original. But I can’t hide my disappointment that, even though my worst nightmares about the project didn’t come to pass, it didn’t fully rehabilitate itself in my eyes either.

I won’t lie – when I started to feel that familiar anger rising again, I got scared. I didn’t get the clean resolution that I wanted, and I worried that destructive obsession would take me over again. I feared I was about to relapse into the world’s stupidest addiction.

All of a sudden, it clicked together. I spent 120 hours staring straight at the answer, oblivious to it. Yet it finally came to me.

FULL ESSAY: https://planckstorytime.wordpress.com/2024/05/11/final-fantasy-vii-rebirth-a-world-beyond-anger/

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth: A World Beyond Anger (Part Five)

V. A Generous Interpretation…

Ordinarily, I eschew theories and predictions about where an ongoing story might lead, because I prefer to withhold a holistic reading of a text until the text is… well, whole. But at the risk of doing exactly what the marketing team wants from me, I must make an exception. To be honest, I don’t actually believe that we’re dealing with alternate timelines or discrete universes in the traditional (i.e. dumb mass media) sense. Upon visiting Cosmo Canyon, a nameless NPC has some easily missed dialogue that sheds some light on how we’re meant to interpret what’s happening:

“So… my parents are no longer with us – here, that is – but I believe they’re still out there, on another plane. I’ve been reading a bunch of theories on this alternate world in the hope of going there someday. And over the course of my studies, I stumbled across a fascinating theory. It addressed the issue of what the lifestream is, arguing that spiritual energy is actually a manifestation of our knowledge and memories. Like I said, it’s a fascinating theory… but it’s incomplete. What about our hopes and dreams? We remember those, don’t we? So what if spiritual energy doesn’t distinguish between our real, lived memories and the unrealized desires buried deep in our hearts? What if coming into contact with that energy allowed us to ‘peer through the looking glass,’ so to speak? It’s just an idea, but… I hope to find the truth someday.”

A tagline for Rebirth is “What is fact and what is fiction?” While this cryptic ad copy definitely alludes to Cloud’s false memories, I suspect it also hints at the nature of these alternate worlds – namely, that they’re illusory.

The world we explore through Zack’s eyes doesn’t add up. Supposedly, all of the events of Remake occurred just prior to his arrival, but that doesn’t account for why he’s arrived several months later than he should have, or how he carries a comatose Cloud in tow. Biggs, who also seemingly died, likewise appears in this world. He remembers Cloud from his adventures in part one. As if this asynchronous timeline wasn’t enough, both Zack and Biggs mention that their internal clocks seem broken – they can’t tell how much time has passed since they arrived. Meanwhile, the world has suddenly withered without anyone noticing, and an ominous crack of doom looms in the sky. Far from the radiant golden glow that we saw in the closing cutscene of the first installment, this Midgar evokes a fanciful dream morphed into a nightmare.

I believe that these separate takes on reality are manifestations within the lifestream – demi-realities given the illusion of form through the echo of subconscious desires. Keeping with the Freudian theme, we can surmise that such desires materialize as dreams. Aerith likely left some sort of metaphysical impression when she zapped the plot ghosts at the end of Remake. Everyone who shows up in this nonsensical dream world are people that she knew, pantomiming their lives through the ever darkening scenario. Just as we populate our dreams with the people we know in the waking world, I believe most of the individuals in these worlds are projections based on how Aerith views them, acting as she unconsciously directs them. The exceptions are Zack and Biggs, who appear more like errant ghosts, drawn in by her unfulfilled desires for their survival. If we compare this evidence to the narrative’s broader conflict between the pleasure principle and the death drive, we can deduce the following: To deny death is to master desire; to master desire is to live in a dream.

The original story’s lifestream sequence provides us with the smoking gun for this explanation – the presence of the same golden rift across the sky that we see in both Zack’s world and Cloud’s perspective during the ending cutscene. Within the demi-realities, this crack in the fabric of the universe portends the coming apocalypse. But perhaps it really symbolizes the fleeting succor that these delusions provide before crumbling to the inescapable truth? Fate seems determined to correct these worlds (perhaps reflective of the grieving process), as different iterations still end with Biggs dead and Zack facing an onslaught of Shinra gunfire.

The previously linked chart of the “timelines” posits that Cloud creates a new timeline where he saves Aerith during the finale. As explained, I disagree with this being a logical, causality-driven event, and suggest that it’s instead fundamentally illogical. Aerith’s apparent survival comes from Cloud’s denial of reality – his inability to cope with failure and loss. Whether she’s a projection on a transitory plane or entirely a figment of Cloud’s imagination, the point stands that it’s an unnatural, unhealthy, artificial existence. I do not think she is alive in both body and spirit somewhere, or that the confluence and sundering of worlds somehow sends one spirit to the afterlife and leaves the other alive and conscious. If that’s the case, then that is extremely stupid, and would paint the party’s inability to see what Cloud sees as a deficiency on their part. Cloud is not red-pilled; he does not see an omniverse while all the plebeians stare at shadows on the wall of a cave. Making him perceptive of real, tangible worlds beyond normal observation would devastate his character arc, which hinges on him accepting his weakness and shattering his delusions.

With all due respect to other theorists, I believe that the rainbow light denotes not the splitting of timelines, but instead points of interference within the lifestream. We see the rainbows appear when summoning entities from materia, when interacting with lifesprings, and even when transitioning into the Fort Condor minigame (consider the authenticity of those literal toys in relation to the memory-images of people in these alternate worlds). I can see why some players interpret the rainbow as a path of divergence, since it recalls the image of light passing through a prism. But I think that rainbows can have many meanings: unity, inclusion, hope, etc. For this reading, though, I’d like to draw attention to what rainbows really are – tricks of light, illusions toward which humans commonly ascribe superstitious awe. From Biblical covenants to viral internet videos that you haven’t thought of in over a decade, rainbows captivate onlookers, who assign them phenomenal importance. Rainbows, however, lack substance – they cannot be touched, they cannot give you that promised pot of gold. They provide temporary bliss and then fade, as all insubstantial novelties do. Seeing one in an oil spill doesn’t mean the environment’s not in danger. Thus, I think Rebirth’s use of rainbows factors into ideas of perception, delusions, and coping mechanisms.

If there’s any validity to this interpretation, then where should the story go from here? Well, Kitase said in an interview with Vandal that, although the final entry in the trilogy will culminate in a happy ending, it won’t be “sunshine and rainbows.” Perhaps that’s a hint, perhaps it’s a Freudian slip, or perhaps I am projecting my own desires onto my reading. Regardless, I think the dissolution of these dream purgatories is the only satisfying way to close this plotline. The worlds seem condemned to perish soon after their nascence. They’re only born when fate’s boundaries are breached, which can’t be an everyday occurrence. Cloud even describes the planet as “screaming” in agony as a response to this fission and fusion.

Cloud and Aerith’s dream worlds seemingly emerge as wishful fabrications where their loved ones live on, but the latter goes on to explain that death is a natural part of life:

“Y’know… If you think about it, life and death are just two sides of the same coin. Our bodies may disappear when we die, but our spirits still live on. We return to the planet, rejoin the lifestream, and – in time – give rise to new life.”

Aerith rebukes Sephiroth’s desire to forge an everlasting world, claiming there’s no such thing as “forever.” Cheating death comes naturally for him, and so the conflict won’t end until he, like everyone, accepts his mortality. Far ahead of him, the apparition of Aerith at the end refers to her current location as a “second home” – alluding to the multiple references of death as a “homecoming” and confirming her acceptance of her passing.

Cloud’s repression has taken root, and he must learn the truth in order to dissolve the false reality that he’s conjured. Through a veil of static interference immediately following her death, the player can see Cloud silently mouthing the words that he initially uttered there in the 1997 title. I believe he gives the same speech here, too, only to erase it from his conscious memory and escape into his delusions. As with Zack, so with Aerith.

This is why I really appreciate what they did with Tifa in the Gongaga section. At first, I was hesitant toward the premature revelation about her mother’s death, but now I see it as a potential setup for an emotionally resonant scene in part three. Cloud and Tifa will inevitably fall into the lifestream, where she will help him reconstruct his memories and accept his true self, as dictated by the source material. However, I think now she will also aid him in overcoming his grief about Aerith.

“You saved me before; now it’s my turn.”

Tifa says this to Cloud after recounting their shared childhood trauma. Unknowingly marching toward her death, Tifa believed that her departed mother was waiting for her across the Mount Nibel. Cloud intercepted her and tried to free her from her delusions. I hope that we see her repay him in the final game – she will bring him back to reality and help him to move on. The dead are gone forever. The best way to honor their memory is not repression, or regression, or Reunion – but progression, living for the future, and pacifying that drive toward death (inevitable though it may be).

In the end, Aerith says it best:

“I get it, I really do. Knowing that the people we love aren’t really gone? It doesn’t make it any easier to let them go. It still hurts. So we can’t just think of it as a ‘homecoming.’ ‘Cause it’s not that simple. We’ve all experienced pain. We all have our regrets. What we’ve done – what’s been done to us – that’s set in stone. The past is forever. But the future – even if it has been written – can be changed.”

Should the writing of the third entry opt to follow this path, rather than the full-on comic book multiverse option, I’ll find it more agreeable – maybe even moving.

Something is still missing, though. For some reason, those assurances still aren’t enough for me.

FULL ESSAY: https://planckstorytime.wordpress.com/2024/05/11/final-fantasy-vii-rebirth-a-world-beyond-anger/

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth: A World Beyond Anger (Part Four)

IV. Crisis on Infinite Aeriths

Let’s get this out of the way: this game should not have ended at the Forgotten Capital. It makes little sense from a dramatic perspective. I defended the decision to center the entire first chapter around Midgar, because although that arc does not nearly comprise one-third of the original game’s length, it nonetheless fits well as the first act of a grander story. Additionally, Midgar contains a miniature three-act structure in itself: reactor bombings (act 1), meeting Aerith through the plate collapse (act 2), and the raid on the Shinra building (act 3). Rebirth doesn’t share this structure, partially because it’s adapting only part of the “road trip” that constitutes the second act of FF7. This results in a narrative that feels meandering, particularly because it cuts off prematurely.

The lowpoint of the original game – and consequently, where the second act really wraps up – is not Aerith’s death. It’s the Northern Crater. Cloud surrenders to Sephiroth’s control, believing all of his memories to be false. Sephiroth acquires the Black Materia and summons Meteor to eradicate all human life on the planet. The Weapons awaken to wreak havoc on the terrified populace. A cave-in sends Cloud tumbling into the lifestream, his fate unknown. Tifa and Barret awaken in custody of Shinra, awaiting public execution. Now that’s a cliffhanger!

But with all the “changing destiny” nonsense from part one, the flower girl’s fate became a central focus of fan speculation, and as such, an obnoxiously large part of the marketing.

As the “big payoff”, the developers naturally felt inclined to conclude Rebirth with the (very dumb) answer to this question. Catering to hype culture comes at the expense of a well-paced story. Several of the key setups within Rebirth, such as the destination of the robed men, could’ve been resolved had the game gone just a bit further. The same goes for the photographer that snaps a picture of the visiting SOLDIERS during the first hour. Proper pacing would’ve provided a bookend with the reveal of the real photo, and Cloud’s subsequent meltdown. In failing to reach the Northern Crater, the central axis of story just spins in place until it comes to an abrupt halt. Progressing to this point would’ve doubtlessly necessitated the developers to make a chunk of more content. However, they could’ve easily pivoted their priorities away from any of the open world locales, sidequests, or minigames to facilitate this. Hell, they could’ve trimmed down some of the critical path in order to get us there – they already omitted Wutai, Rocket Town, and Bone Village, after all.

Missteps like this robbed us of a perfect opportunity to face a delirious, indoctrinated Cloud as the final boss. I think that would’ve been more heartbreaking and impactful than yet another tedious Sephiroth fight. As with Remake, the silver-haired villain’s portrayal fails to instill any semblance of fear or danger. His overuse has ballooned to critical mass, turning him into Final Fantasy VII’s very own Poochie. It should be obvious that for every time a villain shows up and fails to impede the protagonists, fails to slay his targets, fails to turn the emotionally frail to his purpose, he comes across as less and less competent. By the time you’ve beaten the now-multidimensional quasi-deity again, he literally flies away, promising to do better next time. It’s simply baffling how poorly the creative leads have handled Sephiroth throughout this project, and how little they understand the proper escalation of stakes.

He’s far from the only bungled character, though. Cid Highwind always posed a challenge to adapt, due to his verbal and emotional abuse of his live-in assistant, Shera. Heroically framing a domestic abuser would not fly as easily today as it did in 1997, so I understand the need for changes. But they didn’t need to change everything about him. Original Cid’s pathos comes from the fact that he, like much of the rest of the cast, carries the burden of a life destroyed by Shinra. The rusting hulk of his derelict rocket, once the source of his dreams, anchors him to a life of lingering regrets, reminding him of his failures. This is the immutable foundation of his character. Square could’ve expressed his anguish in any number of ways: depression, self-loathing, alcoholism, whatever.

Instead, their solution to avoid him abusing Shera was… getting rid of Shera. There’s nothing in Rebirth to suggest his background as a failed astronaut. Instead, he’s a “free flier” – literally the opposite of what he’s supposed to represent. His abrasive attitude has been toned down. He’s now a right proper gentleman, if a bit cocky. I’m sure that the third game will reintegrate Rocket Town and Shera in some capacity, but I can’t reconcile the new Cid with anything that might resemble his designated arc for the future. The man doesn’t even smoke anymore, despite his omnipresent cigarette previously serving as a running gag. God forbid we depict a good guy using tobacco; what would the children think?

In general, the remake games have shied away from their characters having grit to them. Cait Sith no longer holds Marlene hostage to gain leverage over the party. Avalanche’s members all commit themselves to strictly non-violent terrorism… despite getting booted from the main branch for their extremist tactics. Players face several instances of my least favorite trope in all of media: the protagonists’ refusal to kill the villains responsible for countless deaths, even though they have no qualm with slaughtering dozens of nameless mooks that get in the way. It’s not crossing some moral threshold for them, so instances where they object to killing President Shinra, Rufus, Hojo, and the Turks all feel forced and bereft of meaning. Far more stories are guilty of this than just the FF7R titles, but it drives me nuts every time I see it.

The fact remains that these two games consistently come across as insecure in their portrayal of violence and death, as if they’re worried of upsetting the audience. Remake was admittedly much worse about this sort of thing – refer to the evacuation of all named NPCs and countless others in Sector 7, or the omission of Sephiroth’s bloody rampage through the Shinra building. Rebirth’s still worried about those content rating guidelines, though. So no deaths among the Shinra-8’s crewmen, no explicit suicide for Dyne, no hanging from the neck, and no on-screen impalement. Individually, I don’t think any one of these faults are particularly egregious, but once you see the pattern, it becomes difficult not to roll your eyes at the constant sanitization.

Which leads us, at last, to Aerith’s death scene. Or whatever that was.

Whereas the ending of part one left me shaking with anger and repulsed by its pretentious, hypocritical, and indulgent messaging, the finale of Rebirth had me cackling like I was watching a Neil Breen movie. “Trainwreck” does not convey the fiasco’s enormity. Imagine a Rube Goldberg machine comprised of trains. Imagine some messed up Ouroboros train, perpetually crashing into its caboose, forever. That’s the ending of this game. In the span of an hour, we visit no less than four alternate dimensions, swap around an interplanar orb, subvert Aerith’s anticipated death (obviously), subvert that subversion, cut back and forth between a potential alternate timeline/hallucination throughout a bombastic Jenova fight, merge worlds (whatever that means and however it happens, your guess is as good as mine), fight Sephiroth with Zack in a fanservice brawl, fight Bizarro Sephiroth prematurely across three planes of existence, enter another world to be joined by Aerith’s Jedi ghost and clobber Sephiroth once more, then skip her funeral scene because who cares about that shit at this point?

Reactions to this conclusion have been mostly negative, which at least makes me feel less lonely in my criticisms than I did last time. The developers hoodwinked fewer folks this go around, and you’ll see fewer people calling this a “bold step in a new direction” than a “colossal fucking mess.” I almost admire how Square managed to unify the divided fanbase with this approach. Those who wanted Aerith to live this time got baited and shafted, and those who wanted the story done justice received a pandering succession of winks and gotchas that robbed the moment of its crucial meaning. A part of me wants to think the creators aimed to please both sides and failed miserably, but creative director Tetsuya Nomura seemed to know what they had on their on hands:

“But with Rebirth, I honestly cannot imagine what players will be thinking. For example, I set up the direction of the final scene in FFVII Remake that you asked about. I can’t really talk about it now, so I’ll just say that the final scene of the next game will have a very… different impact to the previous one. I’m even more nervous about how people are going to react to some of the things in Rebirth than I was for Remake.”

Any change to a sacred moment would have elicited controversy. I mean, who has a more iconic death than Aerith? Jesus, maybe?

Some might defend these choices, arguing that the sudden brutality of her demise and instant shock of having a loved one taken from you, as in the original, could not be replicated. Therefore, changing the plot here was necessary. I object to this premise on two points:

1. That’s an absolutely cowardly way to view art. It betrays a lack of confidence in your storytelling ability if you can’t think of ways to connect to the audience without resorting to ostentatious stunts.

2. If the original scene truly is inimitable, that does not automatically vindicate the execution of the new rendition. Ardent defenders of the FF7R titles tend to frame their arguments around a false dichotomy, where the only choices available were either a 1:1 remake or the precise end product that we received. Obviously, this isn’t the case – I can appreciate the improvements to Yuffie and Red XIII’s arcs without endorsing the plot ghosts or the Zack fanservice. I can, at all moments, visualize a game that could do better. Plenty of remakes tastefully walk the line of creative embellishments. Look no further than Resident Evil 4 (2023) for a work that worthily adapts a classic for contemporary audiences.

With strong source material to draw from, adaptations begin with half their work done for them. This boon comes balanced by the burden that any deviation will inevitably be compared to the original incarnation, and would need to justify its existence against that. As such, it’s completely fair to judge such choices strictly, especially if they result from foolhardy risks that don’t pay off. Bravado does not excuse failure.

What inspired the creative team to alter this specific moment, when the overwhelming majority of Rebirth follows a trodden path? Would that consistency not make Aerith’s death the natural culmination of events? If you’re keeping the story mostly the same, why make such a massive exception for a pivotal scene? I regret to say that I don’t think this decision arose from any genuine passion to enhance the piece, but rather a much more cynical philosophy.

Games take too long to make these days. The commitment to graphical fidelity, expansive worlds, and potentially hundreds of hours of content has stretched production times to untenable levels. Longer development cycles mean ballooning budgets. Ballooning budgets demand bigger returns. Bigger returns necessitate mass market appeal, which results in scope creep. And the cycle repeats. It’s an unsustainable path for the industry. These more distant deadlines aren’t the results of more ethical working conditions, either; crunch culture still dominates the workforce. Employees just crunch longer. In the past few years, we’ve seen several big projects throughout the entertainment sphere bring in hundreds of millions of dollars, only to financially disappoint. Many AAA games have swollen to such unwieldy sizes that they can’t conceivably make the cash they need. Since investors ubiquitously demand growth each quarter, audience retention is paramount.

But again, games take too long to make. Four years passed between the releases of Remake (2020) and Rebirth (2024). In that same amount of time, old Squaresoft gave us Final Fantasy VII (1997), VIII (1999), IX (2000), and X (2001). Obviously, a very different market landscape produced these titles, and I do not wish to imply that Square Enix’s employees are lazy or inefficient in any way. But how can you maintain not just brand interest, but also investment in an episodic story when installments are so spaced out? For comparison, the entire Mass Effect trilogy wrapped up in just over four years (late 2007 – early 2012). Few things can hold mass audience attention for so long without updates or unfeasible marketing.

Controversy to the rescue! By eliciting controversy, speculation, and discourse, companies can keep material fresh in fans’ minds for years, especially in the age of social media. Arguing with pedants on Twitter and making an ass of yourself in the process is among the most cherished pastimes – and the one most likely to get you invested in future outcomes! Folks will never move on as long as they’re bickering, and they’ll bicker as long as there’s divisive stuff to bicker about. In this way, writers can cater to the larger economic forces at play. This might explain why Remake concludes on such a provocative note, only to amount to little beyond the following game’s last minute encore. An interview with Julien Chièze revealed that Kitase wished for audiences to scrutinize and debate the endings and the potential upcoming changes (despite all of this supposedly leading back to Advent Children anyway). Varietyalso conversed with Hamaguchi, who said:

“Now, we anticipate having various conjectures about this ending and many different interpretations from players as this game is released, which will create some healthy debate. I will also be observing the players’ responses, which will allow us to perhaps feed those into, you know, as we look to create the third title as well.”

I suspect that these alterations did not originate via a natural evolution within the narrative, but as a gimmick to perpetuate consumer interest. It’s the classic “mystery box” formula returning to wreak havoc. After seeing this engineered controversy, I wish this project had not been divided into multiple parts.

Most of this financially alluring speculation revolves around the nature of the other “worlds” (delineated by Stamp, the dog mascot) showcased throughout the finale, and whether or not Aerith survives in one of them. To make sense of what we witnessed, enthusiastic players have resorted to complicated diatribes or digital cork board charts, such as this popular one by Reddit user Recklessavatar:

Audiences must be fatigued by multiverses at this point, I feel. Specifically, I’m referring to stories where characters interact with alternate versions of themselves, or travel in between a plethora of divergent continuities, all butterflying away from one another. It’s been the big thing to do in popular media for the past several years – particularly because it allows for stories with “infinite possibilities”, which usually just means an absence of consequences. Superhero stuff, in its waning cinematic renaissance, focuses on multiverse narratives more than ever: the Marvel Cinematic Universe kicked off the “Multiverse Saga” with films like Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021) and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022); Sony Pictures graced us with Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse (2018) and Across the Spiderverse (2023); and Warner Bros vomited out The Flash (2023) as a desperate continuity reset. Let’s not ignore the prevalence of the concept in shows like Rick and Morty (2013-ongoing), or its encroachment into otherwise concluded series like Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake (2023). Multiverse mania even wormed its way into an Academy Award Best Picture winner with Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022). Recent games certainly haven’t escaped this trend. Mortal Kombat 1 (2023) masquerades as a series reboot (again), before turning into a clash between all past continuities and innumerable alternate worlds. Bayonetta 3 (2022) dives headfirst into the concept as well – unfortunately, it’s proven to be an increasingly shallow sea. You’re bound to break your neck if you do that.

It’s not hard to see what makes this premise so attractive to producers. You can connect to older media properties and past interpretations of characters. The tangled web of continuity canonizes old stuff that you liked, baiting that nostalgia cortex in your Lizard Brain and assigning proverbial “required reading” to those less familiar. Existing content can be recombined to generate spin-offs ad infinitum. This phenomenon extends to mushy conglomerates of IPs, where characters are removed from their original context and absorbed into some kind of media katamari. Ready Player One (2018), Space Jam: A New Legacy (2021), MultiVersus (2022), and the various Lego movies (2014, 2016, 2018) count among these. And hey, Final Fantasy VII is connected to Disney through Kingdom Hearts (2002-ongoing)…

The point is, multiverse junk has saturated popular culture lately. Not all of these works are bad, but patterns emerge between them the longer you stare. Common blunders include the erosion of stakes, selective continuity, and the collapse of cohesive worldbuilding. The worst offenders foreground the notion that, inherently, nothing in the diegesis matters whatsoever.

The introduction of several parallel universes to Final Fantasy VII would prove exhausting even if it was implemented well. Piling science-fiction-timeline-balderdash onto a deeply spiritual world of transcendent knowledge and ethereal souls promises to poke holes in the worldbuilding. But it’s not just sloppy – it’s antithetical to the fundamental themes of FF7. In a game about the fragility of life and the frailty of our planet (we only have one of each), you can’t suddenly introduce distinct, alternate versions of the same people across an endless ocean of permeable realities. It annihilates everything for which the original stood.

When I think about this sort of thing, I fear that my pessimistic instincts might’ve been right all along. I worry that I’m somehow betraying myself for finding any value in Rebirth.

All that said, I do see a narrow path forward. Building off my previous psychoanalytic reading, I came to an interpretation of the ending that’s somewhat more palatable, and might even save the franchise for me.

FULL ESSAY: https://planckstorytime.wordpress.com/2024/05/11/final-fantasy-vii-rebirth-a-world-beyond-anger/

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth: A World Beyond Anger (Part Three)

III. A Pervert’s Guide to Mortality

Look, I can make juvenile jokes about the massive swords, or the recurrent use of flower imagery, or Sephiroth’s Oedipus complex, or how Cloud riding the dolphin is secretly foreshadowing him having sex with Tifa at the end of disc two1 – but the fact is, Final Fantasy VII basks in Freudian and Jungian ideas. Traumatic repression, unconscious compulsions, personas and shadows, displaced affection, psychological projection – all of these play important roles in the story. That isn’t to say that a psychoanalytic reading supersedes all others, or even that the creators specifically intended it. Concepts related to Mahayana Buddhism obviously permeate the text, and likely carry with them their own baggage that can impact someone’s analysis. But I am not knowledgeable on that subject, and so I hope to offer an interpretation based on my own limited frame of reference.

With its additions to the Final Fantasy VII mythos, Rebirth emphasizes a core tension (and I mean, like, planetary core) between the two predominant drives that motivate human behavior in the Freudian model: the pleasure principle (libido) and the death drive. One governs our desires, survival instincts, goals, and relationships, while the other dictates aggression, self-destructive behavior, repetition, trauma, and ultimately, death itself. Keeping in mind the franchise’s preexisting focus on complex, recursive trauma, let’s look into some of the new scenes that this title added.

Midway through the game, Cloud briefly succumbs to Sephiroth’s influence and, in his psychosis, knocks Tifa into a mako reactor. An infant weapon subsequently swallows her whole and submerges into the lifestream. Tifa awakens, floating in the fetal position inside a bulging orb of materia distending from the belly of the Weapon. According to Hojo, the Weapons are themselves born from these magical wombs, which they recursively absorb. The scenario evokes a fantasy of inverted birth, which could not be truer to the title of the game. In Japanese, Rebirth uses the same kana (リバース)as “reverse” – the double entendre alluding to a regression to an earlier state upon which any “rebirth” is contingent. It’s both the push of gestation and life as it is the pull of nonexistence and oblivion. In Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Freud identifies “an urge in organic life to restore an earlier state of things”(43). From this, he concludes that “the aim of all life is death” – or as Sephiroth might put it, a “homecoming” – since “inanimate things existed before living ones” (46).

As the Weapon carries the uterine Tifa through a valley of repressed memories, a swarm of white Whispers flank it. That’s right, this version of the wispy-tailed, cephalic-hooded pests no longer appear to represent puristfans. They instead embody the polar opposite of them: sex! Swirling around the innards of the planet, which is repeatedly referred to as the “Great Mother”, the sperm-like Whispers clash with their black cousins, now servants of Sephiroth. Considering that Remake taught us to think of the Whispers, textually, as the will of the planet, then the opposing forces here represent the instincts of creation and life against the paradoxical allure of corruption and death. Tifa emerges from the Weapon, born anew with transcendental wisdom and reconstituted memories. Her trial of regression fails to subsume her, and instead reinvigorates her life force and commitment to defend the planet. The thematic conflict, as exemplified here, extends to all manners of attraction, nurturing, survival, and future purpose versus sorrow, anger, fatalism, and past trauma.

The Freudian model intrinsically associates the positive, exciting energies of the libido with sexual desire. It’s little wonder why Rebirth is so horny. We get an entire titillating beach episode with Cloud’s shirtless twunk body and Tifa’s bikini-clad figure clearly captivating one another. Romance mechanics have been expanded, and random NPCs can’t help but thirst for the crew as they pass by. Every few minutes, it seems like Cloud’s adventure gets interrupted by some new homoerotic rival figure who helps him grow through their challenges. Chief among them is Roche, whose unsubtle mastery of the red hot rocket between his legs powers his every impulse. And God, does he love it; that is, until he succumbs to Sephiroth’s influence, after which he crashes and destroys his phallic hog. His loss of self accompanies his symbolic castration.

But beyond the realm of sexy people doing sexy things, libidinal energies influence all manner of life-preserving behaviors. Several quests involve the party acting as surrogate parents or protectors to baby animals. Yuffie affectionately names a baby bird “Cloud Jr.”, and the group defends the fledgling from predators. Upon returning to Nibelheim, Tifa locates her old cat, Fluffy, and protects her and her seven kittens from encroaching monsters. And rounding out this pattern, Cloud even has to play babysitter in that godforsaken Mooglet roundup minigame.

Death instincts, by contrast, manifest most acutely as traumatic repetition – that is, the unconscious return to a source of pain, or reenactment of its circumstances, against all life-preserving logic. Barret’s misery stems from the detonation of a faulty mako reactor, which Shinra used as a pretext to destroy his hometown. Ironically, he retaliates against the company by orchestrating his own reactor bombings. However, his death instincts do not consume him, as his fatherly care for Marlene and goal of saving the environment keeps these suicidal impulses in check. Dyne lacks this lifeline; without Marlene in his life, left to grieve alone for her and his wife, he turns to self-destructive violence. He kills with no provocation or goal, channeling his desire for death along a “circuitous path” through which he projects it (literally) onto others (Freud, 45).

“All the lives I took, just to fill the hole in my heart. Just to fill the void they left… I wanna see them again, and I know what I need to do… but I can’t. I just can’t… Eleanor and Marlene are waiting for me, but… but I can’t bring myself to join ‘em.”

With an insufficient drive toward pleasure and love, Dyne invites his own demise. He looms as Barret’s shadow, a grim what-could-have-been.

Both Cloud and Tifa experience PTSD flashbacks, especially in areas near their hometown massacre – a self-destructive behavior beyond their control, triggered by unconscious mechanisms. Disturbingly, we witness Cloud mimicking the source of his trauma several times, like when he adopts Sephiroth’s sword stance in the Gongaga reactor, or when repeating his words verbatim at the Mount Nibel lifespring. Through the use of Jenova’s cellular magnetism, Sephiroth can manipulate his past victims as puppets and proxies. They become signal boosters to perpetuate his evil. True to his nature as the son of an interstellar parasite, he aims to influence the compulsion toward death as a means to his eternal survival and satisfaction: first via the sacrifice of the black robes, inexorably marching to their Reunion at their mother’s call; then by expediting the life cycle of the planet, returning souls to the lifestream en masse. During the final battle, he generates a form akin to the Weapons, “Reborn” with a gibbous protuberance on his abdomen. In other words, the game climaxes with the party whacking his giant mpreg belly to halt his autogenetic apotheosis.

The visual metaphor is downright insane, and I feel like I should be locked up for parsing it this way.

Zack’s intermissions take place in a world of despair, an apparent dream-turned-nightmare, where the apocalypse seems inevitable. Most inhabitants have lost the will to live positively or with purpose. It is from worlds like these that Sephiroth intends to harvest negative energy, perhaps to spur the planet along on its self-destructive course. Back in the real world, he stokes war between Midgar and Wutai. Aggression, hatred, memetic trauma, and the welcoming of death seem to empower Sephiroth and further his designs. And nowhere does a desire for death manifest stronger than among the Gi.

Revealed in Rebirth to be aliens confined to spectral forms, the Gi tribe endures an existence bereft of pleasureful purpose, with their only desire – death – forever out of reach. The lifestream has rejected them, and so they languish in limbo.

“Our ultimate salvation is cessation – it is nothingness. Our wish is not “to exist”, but rather, to no longer exist.”

Their drive for nonexistence leads them to seize the “greatest of materia” and imbue it with their “desire for freedom.” Thus did they create the Black Materia, the ultimate instrument of death and key to Sephiroth’s plans. Through the Gi’s suicidal aspirations, the entire planet might perish in flame. The only spell that can combat this comes from the White Materia, which Aerith fills with a wish to preserve her friends and the world itself. Nobody finds more joy in the pleasures of life, big or small, than Aerith. Again, we see the competing impulses of the pleasure principle and death drive shake the foundations of the world. Both follow the same “dominating tendency of mental life” that Freud describes as “the effort to reduce, to keep constant, or to remove internal tension due to stimuli” (67). Alleviation of pain, anxiety, and the inherent suffering of existence is the natural, shared goal of both libidinal and death instincts.

Odd as they may be, these readings of Rebirth helped me to appreciate much of its subtext. It roused me from my detached stupor and challenged me to use more than my Lizard Brain. The Gi’s folly, in particular, echoed in my mind. Had I not repeatedly returned to these disappointing games in my head, soaking in that unpleasant aura, spiraling through the same enraged patterns of thought? Did I not wish for Rebirth to be disgustingly alienating for me, spurning all sparks of hope that I might enjoy it? Could I not compel this love-hate relationship toward its death – its simple, conclusive cessation?

It’s hard not to laugh at such a cathexis with a video game – doubly so when my irrational investment in hostility somehow alerted me to the subliminal activation of frightening primal mechanisms. Well, good to recognize the problem, I suppose. At least I’ve got some level of self-awareness.

But unfortunately, that wasn’t quite the epiphany I wanted it to be. Frustration and anger at several creative decisions would continue to seep through the cracks.

It is, though.

FULL ESSAY: https://planckstorytime.wordpress.com/2024/05/11/final-fantasy-vii-rebirth-a-world-beyond-anger/

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth: A World Beyond Anger (Part Two)

II. On the Way to a Smile

Not only does Final Fantasy VII Rebirth decline to commit to the trajectory set by the end of the previous title, but it also seems to walk back on several of the questionable decisions made by the first installment. The cast’s prescient knowledge of the future story arcs? Gone. One of the first things that happens in Rebirth is Aerith explaining that the group lost all of their future memories after the fight with the Whispers in part one. So now the cast can just go through the same story beats in the same order with the same outcomes for 95% of the game. So much for changing your fate!

Moreover, the discretionary cutaways from death and ambiguous hints about the three Avalanche members’ survivals amount to almost nothing. Jessie and Wedge are, in fact, dead, just like in the original game. Biggs’s survival only happens in an alternate world that may or may not be purgatory. Zack is back, and he’s the centerpiece of the marketing. He even made it onto the cover of the game! And yet, his role in the story feels dramatically cut down from whatever might’ve been previously planned. He occupies scarcely an hour of screentime across the 100+ hour game. Completing the game unlocks the option to skip his sequences, which tells you how significant they are to the actual progression of the plot.

To me, all of this screams that the developers got cold feet on the apparent promise of a radically different adaptation, or that they never had a plan to begin with. I think opening the game with the overt retconning of Zack’s church scene from the end of Remake’s Intermission DLC indicates that the writing isn’t committed to a specific path.

I disagree with the notion that Remake’s climax alluded to only minor adaptational changes, rather than a fundamentally different story. Prior to the party vanquishing the avatars of fate, plenty of creative flourishes and alterations peppered the narrative. There would be no reason to disrupt “fate” (i.e. the direction of the story) if it just reaffirmed the adaptation’s existing ethos. The development team encouraged audiences to speculate on how different things could be. The ending of Remake could hardly be clearer: characters deleting future timelines that carried out OG events, “the future is always a blank page”, the party vanquishing a literal divine incarnation of “capital ‘D’ Destiny”, “the unknown journey continues”, etc.

Was it all meaningless? Was it disingenuous all along? Did they change their minds? Or did the developers just want to feed some controversy for extra publicity, plus a few brownie points for going meta? I’ll return to this point once we’ve discussed the ending of Rebirth. But it’s worth noting that more recent interviews have centered around how the Remake trilogy will eventually lead into Advent Children (2005) – in other words, any narrative digression that contradicts that film (previously thought to be a direct sequel to the 1997 game) must inevitably return to the status quo anyway. In an interview with GamesRadar+, producer Yoshinori Kitase said:

“We are finally going to link up with Advent Children, that is going to be part of canon. The overall storyline, the developments, will not go wildly out in a way that will not add up to Advent Children in the end. I don’t think anyone wanted that, that’s not what we’re looking to create here. [But] to make sure it doesn’t become stale and people know exactly where it’s going, [that it] doesn’t just follow the original word for word, we add in extra elements which add that little bit of doubt. Getting the right balance of that is so key. Ultimately, we’re not trying to change the Final Fantasy 7 story into something really different. The overall balance wouldn’t really allow for that anyway.”

To me, this just sounds like a normal description of an adaptation. Like… all of them, ever. It seems a far cry from the wild, uncharted frontier they recklessly set their sights on back in 2020. Unsurprisingly, I prefer this more conservative approach. Changes feel more natural, our heroes aren’t battling the literal ghosts of the plot, and everyone seems to be acting more in-character than they were throughout the third act of Remake. It might sound like I’m poking fun at Square Enix for backpedaling, and I am, to an extent. But I also view the conceit behind my interpretation of Remake’s ending to be a rhetorical gangrenous limb. Its amputation seems like a necessary course correction, and it helped me to enjoy the new game more than I expected. I’d say that for most of its duration, Rebirth ironically feels like a more faithful retelling than Remake did.

As with part one, I greatly enjoyed the environments, music, and combat design. Controlling characters feels more responsive, world traversal has more freedom, and quest design improved dramatically. It more closely resembles my conception of what a modern entry in the series should bethan Final Fantasy XVI (2023)does. A few of the 30+ minigames irritated me, but it felt nice to have new things consistently introduced to break the routine of the main gameplay loop. None of them match the standard set by Queen’s Blood, but what’s Final Fantasy VII without some annoying side activities?

I appreciate the effort put into creating mechanics used for single sequences, just as I admire the attention to detail in the recreation of old locales, monsters, and NPCs. The stretch of the adventure covering Junon, Costa del Sol, the Gold Saucer, Gongaga, and Cosmo Canyon in particular stood out as exceptionally well-crafted. Like the Wall Market chapter of Remake, these sections demonstrate the potential inherent in a faithful – yet creatively distinct – retelling. Even as a connection to the Compilation, which I generally dislike, Cissnei’s presence in Gongaga felt both plausible and satisfying to me.

On top of all of this, I consistently laughed along with Rebirth’s humor. It manages to catch that quirky, borderline surrealist tone of FF7’s classic gags, then mixes it with a bit of flare that would feel at home in the Yakuza series (2005-ongoing). From Red XIII’s disguised breakdance to Solemn Gus’s designated hype man to Junon’s pub exclusively catering to bald patrons, the wacky scenarios and odd predicaments that the characters find themselves in often provide more amusement than the main story. Constant opportunities for them to react to strange occurrences, banter with each other, and build their chemistry constitute the core of the game’s appeal.

Barret shines as the standout member of the party this time around. His arc, like the man himself, carries a lot of weight. I love how the game articulates the tragedy of his relationship with Dyne. The lack of catharsis for Barret at the end of it all feels both heart-wrenching and all too appropriate. In his eyes, he has yet to redeem himself, but with his friends’ help, that burden won’t be enough to bury him. Beyond just his personal pathos, Barret’s characterization radiates a versatility to which few others can compare. He offers comfort and protection to Cloud and Tifa upon their revisit to the facsimile of Nibelheim, applying his fatherly instincts to his companions. His camaraderie with Red XIII, which was practically nonexistent in the source material, proves to be one of the most compelling relationships throughout the new content.

Actually, Red XIII has improved across the board. I always thought the character showed promise, but he rapidly loses plot relevance after Cosmo Canyon in the original. Rebirth utilizes him more effectively by giving us glimpses into his private moments with characters besides Cloud. This results in a greater sense of interiority, and helps to put him on more equal footing with Cloud, Tifa, Aerith, and Barret, as far as narrative importance goes. The Gi vignette, which constitutes the entirety of Red’s arc in the original, now ties into the lore of the Black Materia in a really interesting way – perhaps the first expansion to the series’s mythology that I’ve actually enjoyed. This makes Red’s continued presence on the adventure feel more natural. More importantly, his determination to free the Gi from their deathless purgatory sets up an interesting new storyline to pursue in the third game.

As with Red XIII, Rebirth similarly capitalizes on Yuffie’s latent potential. She’s still an obnoxious, kleptomaniacal child, but now one with the unsettling ideals of a militant nationalist. Yuffie’s borderline jingoistic admiration for her country’s “interim government”, as well as her dream of enacting revenge on Shinra, grant her more depth than FF7 initially afforded her as a hidden bonus character. Rage and pain lie hidden beneath her exuberant exterior, and this makes her reckless stunts feel actually relevant to the story on both a surface and subtextual level.

I’m not automatically opposed to any deviation from the original game; in fact, I admire it whenever the writing takes care to tighten its screws. Through Yuffie, Rebirth ties its upcoming Wutai story arc into the newly foreshadowed Huge Materia (now called “Magnus”) and Weapon plotlines. Previously, these three stories had little or nothing to do with one another, and were somewhat tangential to the progression of the main scenario throughout the latter half of FF7. Bringing them all together like this stitches up some of the frayed threads of the original’s tapestry. It feels like a natural restoration that improves upon the fabric of the original, rather than rendering something akin to the Monkey Jesus fresco.

Of course, another highlight of Rebirth is Cloud and Tifa’s deepening bond. Square took this to unexpected (though not entirely unwelcome) territory. I think both characters are handled well, and the writing really sells both the turbulence and the unrelenting compassion of the relationship. I especially like the focus on Tifa’s propensity to people-please as a trauma response, which helps to facilitate tension in Cloud’s identity crisis mystery. It explores the very human roots of their faults without ever making them unsympathetic. Frankly, I feel like this game should be the final nail in the love triangle debate, but I’m sure shippers will find a way to continue. And Square doesn’t want that war to end. That would just be bad business.

Not only does Rebirth preserve the themes of mental health and the heavy psychosexual symbolism associated with it from the original, but it actually expands upon these motifs, getting more audacious than I ever expected. Much of the new material in story, particularly the expansions to Gongaga and Cosmo Canyon, inspired me to adopt a new perspective on what this project is trying to convey… and what it means to me personally.

FULL ESSAY: https://planckstorytime.wordpress.com/2024/05/11/final-fantasy-vii-rebirth-a-world-beyond-anger/

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