Fred Plays Final Fantasy VII Part One
Nov. 14th, 2011 01:18 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ariadThese entries will be essentially be love letters to one of the most perfect games of all time. (Watch as a third of the sentences begin with "I love".) I'm actually at Gongaga already, but with the rate at which I have been gushing to friends and Tumblr and TextEdit files, I figured I should actually collect my ~FEELINGS!!!~ somewhere. This entry will be especially long because it includes everything up through Cosmo Canyon. Screenshots from Caves of Narshe except where otherwise noted.
Midgar
I named Cloud "Mr. Smith" because I thought it would be hilarious. It is. Not as enormously funny as my previous playthrough, which uses names like "LOLza," "LilPoodle," and "Mr. Creepy," but it will do. Barret is named "Morpheus." I did not rename Tifa because by that point, I was falling in love again with the story and wanted it to be beautiful rather than hilarious, and I corrected Aeris' name to "Aerith." I renamed Red XIII to "Red" because I don't believe that they would actually go around calling him "Red XIII," although I guess it's not that unbelievable because I always call him Red XIII.
OKAY MY FEELINGS ABOUT THE EVENTS IN MIDGAR. THEY ARE MANY AND ALL HAVE TO DO WITH THE TURKS.
Reno. I don't understand Reno. He has always been my favorite Turk, although Tseng is a pretty strong contender now, and starting from when I was in middle school, he has been my favorite character overall. (Before that, I think I liked Tifa because she was pretty and badass.) I don't even fricking know why anymore, it's been so long since I last played this game. I think it has to do with the way he approaches his work: that he loves it but doesn't let it rule him. Plus, he's funny and pretty cool in battle. But since I watched Advent Children, I don't understand his character anymore. He and Rude are used primarily as comic relief in the film, which challenges their competency. To be fair, they didn't do too badly against Yazoo and Loz; it was just that their failures, when they did occur, were portrayed comedically. And one could argue that his heart wasn't really in his attack against Cloud because 1) it was an audition, not a real attack and 2) we saw at the end of FF7 that the antagonism had drained from their relationship.
Then Advent Children Complete happened and now I'm more confused because Reno apparently has a conscience? Maybe he had one at the end of FF7; I don't remember. But how does one reconcile him feeling bad about Shinra destroying the world with him DROPPING THE SECTOR SEVEN PLATE? I don't disbelieve that he has a merciful side; the Turks, like the rest of Shinra, are intentionally introduced as evil assholes and gradually shown to have more dimension as the story progressed. But to me, his willingness to drop the plate makes him pretty ruthless, and I have trouble believing that Shinra's part in damaging the planet is something that he'd dwell on. THAT JUST BOTHERS ME OKAY.
As long as I'm discussing this, though, the fanfic "I Tried," by Drakonlily, does an excellent job of portraying Reno as a nice guy and having him believably drop the plate. It's great because it has him being childhood friends with Tifa, so you think it's going to be totally AU, and then it catches up to the game timeline and it's like OH SHIT SHE TOTALLY MAKES IT WORK. I don't buy that characterization as canon, though, as well as it's done in the fic.
IDK. Maybe Reno just doesn't think about these things. Maybe he gets the order and carries it out, and then he lies awake at night wondering if he had a choice and realizing just how many people he killed and lives he put out of order and how much grief he caused. I could buy that.
SO NOW LET'S TALK ABOUT TSENG. BECAUSE HOLY SHIT. CRISIS CORE HAS TOTALLY CHANGED MY PERCEPTION OF TSENG AND HIS RELATIONSHIP WITH AERITH. One of the first things we see Tseng do is kidnap Aerith and then strike her. I wonder if, after doing so, he remembered his good friend Zack and his promise to look after Aerith in Zack's absence. I wonder if he immediately felt guilty, if Aerith was understanding because she knew he wasn't a bad guy, and if that only made him feel worse. And that is how Tseng managed to make me pity him by hitting a flower girl who hangs out in a church. :|
^ Best line in Midgar.
Rufus has one of the greatest introductions in the game. I love that narrative move of introducing President Shinra as this chilling powerful avaricious villain, who watches with satisfaction as the Sector 7 plate falls—and then killing him almost immediately to replace him with someone even worse.
Kalm
In this town, we get some interesting commentary on the role of resource-draining energy. There's a woman who says something along the lines of, "Thanks to Shinra and Mako energy, we have heat and electricity and can live comfortable lives. Isn't that great?" Upstairs, her daughter says, "We live comfortably thanks to Mako energy, but it's killing the planet. I think the old way of life was better. Don't you?" The game thrusts the player into an eco-terrorist, anti-Shinra role, so it could easily have been very one-sided, but dialogue likes this makes the exploration of resource usage pretty fair. Plus, the audience is playing this game on a PlayStation or a computer, so they are clearly the beneficiaries of electric power, too, and necessarily have to pause and think about it.
I love that about Final Fantasy VII. The environmentalist message plus the commentary on big business make it such a thematically relevant game, unlike the majority of RPGs, including the other Final Fantasy titles. Final Fantasy X comes close to saying some interesting things about religion but sort of kills that by [spoiler alert] revealing Yevon to be inherently evil. Final Fantasy VII brings up important issues and tackles them seriously and fairly.
HOW IS THIS GAME SO PERFECT? MY BRAIN IS CRYING TEARS OF JOY.
I love that when Cloud's telling his story, Tifa goes "........." like she is thinking "THAT IS NOT WHAT HAPPENED. THAT IS TOTALLY NOT WHAT HAPPENED," but she doesn't say anything. Anybody who doesn't know the story will not understand what that ".........." is about but, if they're paying attention, will know that something is off, and anybody who does know it will know right away. THAT IS CALLED FORESHADOWING DONE PERFECTLY.
Junon
I think I got Yuffie outside of Junon. YEAHHH, YUFFIE!
I wonder if Rude is from Junon. The other Turks go drinking together, but Rude seems to have a group of drinking buddies already.
Cargo Ship
^ That's one of those innocuous throwaway lines that end up having so much thematic significance. WATCH HOW THIS RESONATES LATER IN COSMO CANYON.
Costa del Sol
I think it's so interesting how Heideggar deals with chastisement by bullying others.
HIYA JOHNNY.
Gold Saucer
It turns out my compatibility is currently highest with Tifa. That is acceptable because I'm trying to avoid going on the date with Aerith. (I dated Aerith on my previous playthrough.) But I'm really aiming for Barret.
Hurrah, Cait Sith joins the party here! I love that Cloud holds his hand out and says, "Hey, wait!" before Cait Sith walks into him. Once Cait Sith is in, that's the end of that.
Desert Prison
The last (or last last?) time I played the Dyne battle, I cried during the aftermath. I was thirteen, so I'd thought that it was due to hormones and the miserable emotionality of being thirteen, but when Dyne limped along the crumbled wall, lamenting that his Marlene would not recognize him and that his arms are too stained with blood to hold her again anyway, I HAD TEARS. They did not fall, but there they were.
Gongaga
Oh, man, I love the scene between the Turks here because you see them and sort of expect them to be discussing something sinister (unless you are like me and have watched this scene a dozen times, but I can pretend), and then what they're actually discussing is so stupid. I had both Aerith and Tifa in my party at the time, which made it extra awkward. I love that Cloud has a sort of "oh shit!" reaction when Elena comes up to him, but she just talks to him like it's no big deal before she realizes that it's Cloud.
Reno and Rude were actually kind of difficult, especially since they both seemed intent on killing Aerith. Geez, I know Rude doesn't target Tifa, but could they go after Cloud more than the flower girl with a big stick?
The Scarlet & Tseng scene. I NEVER REALIZED HOW SARCASTIC TSENG IS. ♥
Oh, man, I feel like such a dick because I played the Gongaga scene once to get the full story from Aerith and Tifa, and then restarted and played it again in order to ignore the girls. I love that the scene at Zack's house essentially plays out like this:
Cosmo Canyon
I brought Barret along, and I love his excitement for the place. It's great to see characters with passions, and despite his other motives of revenge and anger, Barret is legitimately an environmental enthusiast. Cosmo Canyon is like a Mecca for him. I think that one day, when he settles down, he should go live at Cosmo Canyon and become the next Bugenhagen.
As long as I am talking about Barret, why does the English version of Advent Children have him say "foo'" at the end of every sentence. :| Were the dubbers upset that he looked less like Mr. T, so they wanted to make up for it in the dialogue? You can't even attribute it to mouth movements because he says it over the phone. I'll have to rewatch the Japanese version at some point to see if he talks like that in Japanese, as well. (Unlikely.)
Anyway, Cosmo Canyon begs the question: How does Red XIII climb ladders and ropes?
Shit, Red XIII's line on that ship is totally resonant now, ISN'T IT?
Bonfire time! CAIT SITH IS BEING CRYPTIC. CLOUD I SEE YOUR CRUSH ON AERITH. Tifa is remembering the Nibelheim fire and FORESHADOWING. B'awwwwwww, Barret and memories of AVALANCHE. Yuffie is hilarious as usual.
ANYWAY, I HAVE TO TALK ABOUT YUFFIE because secret characters are a risky thing to do in an RPG. It's easy to it feel like they're not part of the story. Yuffie and Vincent aren't in any FMVs that show the whole party, but there's never a moment when they don't feel like part of the group, and it's AMAZING how the writers do this. Yuffie's dialogue makes it clear that she is One Of Them because even though nobody mentions her, she says things like, "Let's make fun of Red XIII later to let off steam." Plus, she's a sixteen year old girl tagging along with our ragtag team of ecoterrorists for reasons unrelated to environmentalism or social justice or Sephiroth, so when nobody asks her opinion or refers to her when talking about Important Plans, it feels natural because she doesn't really care anyway. She would just say, "I'M BORED. Let's get out of here."
The same goes for Vincent. He has more of a stake in the Mission, but you get a sense that he's actually friends with the characters, especially Cid.
This Seto subplot is really sad, but I don't really buy that Red XIII grew up thinking his father was a coward who abandoned his brave warrior mother just because his mother decided, "This cave sucks. Let's seal it off and forget that any of this ever happened." I DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHY SETO DID NOT BECOME A LOCAL HERO OF LEGEND. But despite the flimsy story, the cheesy crystal teardrops, and Red XIII's hilarious howls, I had tears.
Thus endeth the first installment of Fred Plays Final Fantasy VII. Tune in hopefully next week, provided I am not too busy with my two research papers oh god oh god.
Midgar
I named Cloud "Mr. Smith" because I thought it would be hilarious. It is. Not as enormously funny as my previous playthrough, which uses names like "LOLza," "LilPoodle," and "Mr. Creepy," but it will do. Barret is named "Morpheus." I did not rename Tifa because by that point, I was falling in love again with the story and wanted it to be beautiful rather than hilarious, and I corrected Aeris' name to "Aerith." I renamed Red XIII to "Red" because I don't believe that they would actually go around calling him "Red XIII," although I guess it's not that unbelievable because I always call him Red XIII.
OKAY MY FEELINGS ABOUT THE EVENTS IN MIDGAR. THEY ARE MANY AND ALL HAVE TO DO WITH THE TURKS.
Reno. I don't understand Reno. He has always been my favorite Turk, although Tseng is a pretty strong contender now, and starting from when I was in middle school, he has been my favorite character overall. (Before that, I think I liked Tifa because she was pretty and badass.) I don't even fricking know why anymore, it's been so long since I last played this game. I think it has to do with the way he approaches his work: that he loves it but doesn't let it rule him. Plus, he's funny and pretty cool in battle. But since I watched Advent Children, I don't understand his character anymore. He and Rude are used primarily as comic relief in the film, which challenges their competency. To be fair, they didn't do too badly against Yazoo and Loz; it was just that their failures, when they did occur, were portrayed comedically. And one could argue that his heart wasn't really in his attack against Cloud because 1) it was an audition, not a real attack and 2) we saw at the end of FF7 that the antagonism had drained from their relationship.
Then Advent Children Complete happened and now I'm more confused because Reno apparently has a conscience? Maybe he had one at the end of FF7; I don't remember. But how does one reconcile him feeling bad about Shinra destroying the world with him DROPPING THE SECTOR SEVEN PLATE? I don't disbelieve that he has a merciful side; the Turks, like the rest of Shinra, are intentionally introduced as evil assholes and gradually shown to have more dimension as the story progressed. But to me, his willingness to drop the plate makes him pretty ruthless, and I have trouble believing that Shinra's part in damaging the planet is something that he'd dwell on. THAT JUST BOTHERS ME OKAY.
As long as I'm discussing this, though, the fanfic "I Tried," by Drakonlily, does an excellent job of portraying Reno as a nice guy and having him believably drop the plate. It's great because it has him being childhood friends with Tifa, so you think it's going to be totally AU, and then it catches up to the game timeline and it's like OH SHIT SHE TOTALLY MAKES IT WORK. I don't buy that characterization as canon, though, as well as it's done in the fic.
IDK. Maybe Reno just doesn't think about these things. Maybe he gets the order and carries it out, and then he lies awake at night wondering if he had a choice and realizing just how many people he killed and lives he put out of order and how much grief he caused. I could buy that.
SO NOW LET'S TALK ABOUT TSENG. BECAUSE HOLY SHIT. CRISIS CORE HAS TOTALLY CHANGED MY PERCEPTION OF TSENG AND HIS RELATIONSHIP WITH AERITH. One of the first things we see Tseng do is kidnap Aerith and then strike her. I wonder if, after doing so, he remembered his good friend Zack and his promise to look after Aerith in Zack's absence. I wonder if he immediately felt guilty, if Aerith was understanding because she knew he wasn't a bad guy, and if that only made him feel worse. And that is how Tseng managed to make me pity him by hitting a flower girl who hangs out in a church. :|
^ Best line in Midgar.
Rufus has one of the greatest introductions in the game. I love that narrative move of introducing President Shinra as this chilling powerful avaricious villain, who watches with satisfaction as the Sector 7 plate falls—and then killing him almost immediately to replace him with someone even worse.
Kalm
In this town, we get some interesting commentary on the role of resource-draining energy. There's a woman who says something along the lines of, "Thanks to Shinra and Mako energy, we have heat and electricity and can live comfortable lives. Isn't that great?" Upstairs, her daughter says, "We live comfortably thanks to Mako energy, but it's killing the planet. I think the old way of life was better. Don't you?" The game thrusts the player into an eco-terrorist, anti-Shinra role, so it could easily have been very one-sided, but dialogue likes this makes the exploration of resource usage pretty fair. Plus, the audience is playing this game on a PlayStation or a computer, so they are clearly the beneficiaries of electric power, too, and necessarily have to pause and think about it.
I love that about Final Fantasy VII. The environmentalist message plus the commentary on big business make it such a thematically relevant game, unlike the majority of RPGs, including the other Final Fantasy titles. Final Fantasy X comes close to saying some interesting things about religion but sort of kills that by [spoiler alert] revealing Yevon to be inherently evil. Final Fantasy VII brings up important issues and tackles them seriously and fairly.
HOW IS THIS GAME SO PERFECT? MY BRAIN IS CRYING TEARS OF JOY.
I love that when Cloud's telling his story, Tifa goes "........." like she is thinking "THAT IS NOT WHAT HAPPENED. THAT IS TOTALLY NOT WHAT HAPPENED," but she doesn't say anything. Anybody who doesn't know the story will not understand what that ".........." is about but, if they're paying attention, will know that something is off, and anybody who does know it will know right away. THAT IS CALLED FORESHADOWING DONE PERFECTLY.
Junon
I think I got Yuffie outside of Junon. YEAHHH, YUFFIE!
I wonder if Rude is from Junon. The other Turks go drinking together, but Rude seems to have a group of drinking buddies already.
Cargo Ship
^ That's one of those innocuous throwaway lines that end up having so much thematic significance. WATCH HOW THIS RESONATES LATER IN COSMO CANYON.
Costa del Sol
I think it's so interesting how Heideggar deals with chastisement by bullying others.
HIYA JOHNNY.
Gold Saucer
It turns out my compatibility is currently highest with Tifa. That is acceptable because I'm trying to avoid going on the date with Aerith. (I dated Aerith on my previous playthrough.) But I'm really aiming for Barret.
Hurrah, Cait Sith joins the party here! I love that Cloud holds his hand out and says, "Hey, wait!" before Cait Sith walks into him. Once Cait Sith is in, that's the end of that.
Desert Prison
CLOUD: Do whatever you want… Is that what you want to hear? Well, I can't let you do it. Because, if you die on me, I'm gonna have nightmares.
The last (or last last?) time I played the Dyne battle, I cried during the aftermath. I was thirteen, so I'd thought that it was due to hormones and the miserable emotionality of being thirteen, but when Dyne limped along the crumbled wall, lamenting that his Marlene would not recognize him and that his arms are too stained with blood to hold her again anyway, I HAD TEARS. They did not fall, but there they were.
Gongaga
ELENA: It's so stupid! They always talk about who they like or don't like. But Tseng is different.
Oh, man, I love the scene between the Turks here because you see them and sort of expect them to be discussing something sinister (unless you are like me and have watched this scene a dozen times, but I can pretend), and then what they're actually discussing is so stupid. I had both Aerith and Tifa in my party at the time, which made it extra awkward. I love that Cloud has a sort of "oh shit!" reaction when Elena comes up to him, but she just talks to him like it's no big deal before she realizes that it's Cloud.
Reno and Rude were actually kind of difficult, especially since they both seemed intent on killing Aerith. Geez, I know Rude doesn't target Tifa, but could they go after Cloud more than the flower girl with a big stick?
The Scarlet & Tseng scene. I NEVER REALIZED HOW SARCASTIC TSENG IS. ♥
Oh, man, I feel like such a dick because I played the Gongaga scene once to get the full story from Aerith and Tifa, and then restarted and played it again in order to ignore the girls. I love that the scene at Zack's house essentially plays out like this:
Zack's parents: "Do you know a SOLDIER First Class named Zack?"
Cloud: "I do not know a SOLDIER First Class named Zack."
Zack's parents: "That is funny because there are not that many people in SOLDIER First Class."
Cloud: "Yes. That is funny."
Aerith: "~ZACK~" *runs away*
Cloud: "What."
Tifa: "~ZACK~" *also runs away*
Cloud: "Weird."
Cosmo Canyon
I brought Barret along, and I love his excitement for the place. It's great to see characters with passions, and despite his other motives of revenge and anger, Barret is legitimately an environmental enthusiast. Cosmo Canyon is like a Mecca for him. I think that one day, when he settles down, he should go live at Cosmo Canyon and become the next Bugenhagen.
As long as I am talking about Barret, why does the English version of Advent Children have him say "foo'" at the end of every sentence. :| Were the dubbers upset that he looked less like Mr. T, so they wanted to make up for it in the dialogue? You can't even attribute it to mouth movements because he says it over the phone. I'll have to rewatch the Japanese version at some point to see if he talks like that in Japanese, as well. (Unlikely.)
Anyway, Cosmo Canyon begs the question: How does Red XIII climb ladders and ropes?
BUGENHAGEN: Ho Ho Hoooo. No Nanaki. You can't stand on your own yet. To do that now would destroy you in the long run. Reaching up into the heavens, threatening to snatch the very stars from the great city of Midgar. You seen it, haven't you? Well, that's a bad example. Looking up too much makes you lose perspective. When it's time for this planet to die, you'll understand that you know absolutely nothing.
Shit, Red XIII's line on that ship is totally resonant now, ISN'T IT?
Bonfire time! CAIT SITH IS BEING CRYPTIC. CLOUD I SEE YOUR CRUSH ON AERITH. Tifa is remembering the Nibelheim fire and FORESHADOWING. B'awwwwwww, Barret and memories of AVALANCHE. Yuffie is hilarious as usual.
ANYWAY, I HAVE TO TALK ABOUT YUFFIE because secret characters are a risky thing to do in an RPG. It's easy to it feel like they're not part of the story. Yuffie and Vincent aren't in any FMVs that show the whole party, but there's never a moment when they don't feel like part of the group, and it's AMAZING how the writers do this. Yuffie's dialogue makes it clear that she is One Of Them because even though nobody mentions her, she says things like, "Let's make fun of Red XIII later to let off steam." Plus, she's a sixteen year old girl tagging along with our ragtag team of ecoterrorists for reasons unrelated to environmentalism or social justice or Sephiroth, so when nobody asks her opinion or refers to her when talking about Important Plans, it feels natural because she doesn't really care anyway. She would just say, "I'M BORED. Let's get out of here."
The same goes for Vincent. He has more of a stake in the Mission, but you get a sense that he's actually friends with the characters, especially Cid.
This Seto subplot is really sad, but I don't really buy that Red XIII grew up thinking his father was a coward who abandoned his brave warrior mother just because his mother decided, "This cave sucks. Let's seal it off and forget that any of this ever happened." I DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHY SETO DID NOT BECOME A LOCAL HERO OF LEGEND. But despite the flimsy story, the cheesy crystal teardrops, and Red XIII's hilarious howls, I had tears.
Thus endeth the first installment of Fred Plays Final Fantasy VII. Tune in hopefully next week, provided I am not too busy with my two research papers oh god oh god.
no subject
Date: 2011-11-20 11:27 pm (UTC)KH2 is a bit more emotional (I hate to say it, but I actually cried when Sora finally found Riku XDD), but the story didn't do much for me. And the fact that they completely nerfed and/or got rid of good magic REALLY pissed me off, too. The levels were kind of meh. I remember leading up to its release, Square was always going "HUGE ENORMOUS LEVELS YEAH" and the only levels I felt accurately portrayed that description were Twilight Town and The World That Never Was. Maybe Pride Land, but that was more of a waste land than anything.
Adam and Eve do play a big part of Evangelion, but they're not robots. There are giant mechas, though! They took Christian symbols and incorporated into the series because they thought it was cool, but I'm sure that plenty of people were up in arms when it got released over here. AND WHY DOES EVERYONE TALK ABOUT TALES OF SYMPHONIA?!?! Seriously, you're the millionth person to tell me about this game. IT'S HAUNTING ME DDD:
a story that goes on at the same time as another title, with the unknown, unsung heroes who secretly impacted the first title.
AAAH THAT WOULD BE SO AWESOME!!! It would definitely add a little extra to the series. It has so much world building potential, I don't even know why they neglect doing that.
no subject
Date: 2011-11-21 02:12 am (UTC)Oh hah. My knowledge of Evangelion comes almost entirely from my brother's artbooks, but I want to watch the movie remakes, as I hear they're quite good.
Tales of Symphonia is out to get you, kekekeke. Seriously, though, it's a very fun game, even if the writing isn't very sophisticated. You should check it out. And the way the ToS sequel incorporates the first game is the type of thing I'd like to see in a Final Fantasy sequel: the actions of the characters in the first game have unexpected consequences for the world and especially for the protagonists of the sequel, and returning characters have very minor roles because it's not their story anymore. Plus, updated graphics for returning locations. Wahoo!