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49 - Final Fantasy VII Remake: Reimagining, Sequel, and Fate · Mythic Mind Games

0:02
Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Mythic Mind Games, an extension of
0:05
Speaker 1: the Mythic Mind Fellowship where we pursue wisdom in the
0:07
Speaker 1: past between primary and secondary worlds. I'm doctor Andrew Snyder,
0:11
Speaker 1: and I'm glad that you're here. Welcome back to you
0:19
Speaker 1: Mythic mind Games. Today we are talking about Final Fantasy
0:22
Speaker 1: seven remake. Last time we talked about the original, and
0:25
Speaker 1: so this will probably I assume, ended up being a
0:28
Speaker 1: shorter episode just because you know, we've a lot of
0:31
Speaker 1: the core game of remake is the same, I mean
0:34
Speaker 1: towards the end. Obviously it's a good bit different, but
0:37
Speaker 1: there's a lot of common ouity the basic idea here.
0:39
Speaker 1: But I will say that I really liked this game.
0:44
Speaker 1: I mentioned last time that this that the original Final
0:47
Speaker 1: Ftasy seven has been one of my favorite games for
0:50
Speaker 1: the past almost thirty years. At this point, it's it
0:52
Speaker 1: that's the majority of my life, the vast majority of
0:55
Speaker 1: my life. And you know, I'm really used to revisits
0:59
Speaker 1: of old ips as just massacring them, but I feel
1:04
Speaker 1: like this really did respect the originals. The characters were
1:08
Speaker 1: more or less the same, just deepened, which that's a
1:11
Speaker 1: lot for me to say to take a favorite game
1:15
Speaker 1: like this and say that the remake actually deepened the characters,
1:18
Speaker 1: made them better, which I think is pretty undeniable. But
1:21
Speaker 1: in making them better and make they did that, they
1:23
Speaker 1: made them deeper, but they're still basically the same characters,
1:26
Speaker 1: and so I really enjoyed that. I mean that the
1:29
Speaker 1: music is just a big nostalgia hit for me, of
1:31
Speaker 1: you know, adapting the same themes but in new ways.
1:37
Speaker 1: The I don't know, I could. I could gush on
1:40
Speaker 1: about this for a while, but overall, I really enjoyed it.
1:43
Speaker 1: Obviously we'll talk about some of the changes that they made,
1:45
Speaker 1: but I will say as an opening remark, I actually
1:47
Speaker 1: thought that they were very respectful of the original, and
1:50
Speaker 1: that's something that I really appreciate. But yeah, so what
1:53
Speaker 1: are some of your thoughts. Yeah, well, first of all,
1:56
Speaker 1: I'm very glad to hear that you really enjoyed it, Andrew,
2:00
Speaker 1: because when I came at remake, I played it. I
2:04
Speaker 1: started remake literally the day I finished Final Fhasy seven
2:08
Speaker 1: the original for the first time, so I did not
2:10
Speaker 1: have any nostalgia goggles at all. And I know people
2:13
Speaker 1: who grew up playing that game. When found Matasy seven,
2:16
Speaker 1: when they were younger can have wildly divergent opinions on
2:21
Speaker 1: how they feel about remake. I think most people are
2:24
Speaker 1: probably in the camp of is at least good, But
2:27
Speaker 1: it does feel very different in a lot of ways.
2:30
Speaker 1: The gameplay especially is just very, very different, to the
2:34
Speaker 1: point where I honestly think it's a stretch to even
2:37
Speaker 1: use the term remake to describe this game. This is
2:40
Speaker 1: like a complete reimagining of what Found Fantasy seven is. Like,
2:44
Speaker 1: It's clearly playing off of the same characters and very
2:48
Speaker 1: general storyline, though it plays with even that quite a bit.
2:52
Speaker 1: But yeah, I think in some ways it's better viewed
2:56
Speaker 1: as a sequel to Final Fantasy seven than an actual remake.
3:00
Speaker 1: And then, of course the sequels to remake are then
3:02
Speaker 1: further sequels down the line from that, and we can
3:06
Speaker 1: get into what that means from a story perspective, because
3:07
Speaker 1: the man this game opens up ridiculous opportunities for speculation
3:12
Speaker 1: about what the heck is going on in this story,
3:15
Speaker 1: Like the more you know of Original five Acy seventh,
3:17
Speaker 1: the weirder this story is when you come into it.
3:21
Speaker 1: So at least when I played it, I had the
3:23
Speaker 1: original story pretty fresh in my mind, so when it deviated,
3:25
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, that's different, why are they doing that?
3:28
Speaker 1: And then it actually makes plot points out of it.
3:30
Speaker 1: But and like I said on the fun Mazy seven podcast,
3:34
Speaker 1: I think the strongest thing about Pubby seven story is
3:37
Speaker 1: the characters and just how like interesting they they are,
3:43
Speaker 1: in particularly their relational dynamics with each other. Like this
3:46
Speaker 1: is a group of characters that really feels kind of
3:49
Speaker 1: like I hate to use the term found family because
3:52
Speaker 1: of how that sometimes use, but that is kind of
3:53
Speaker 1: how these characters end up working. And yeah, just the
3:56
Speaker 1: relationships are super interesting, and like you said, I think
3:59
Speaker 1: a lot of the care benefited massively in this remake.
4:03
Speaker 1: Barrett went from being like like I like him a
4:06
Speaker 1: lot in Family a C seven original, but I feel
4:08
Speaker 1: like he's kind of just I don't know, he's there
4:12
Speaker 1: to like be goofy sometimes, which doesn't feel like when
4:14
Speaker 1: I want Barrett to be. But like the way they
4:16
Speaker 1: deal with Barrett in remake is just incredible, Like he
4:19
Speaker 1: became maybe my favorite character in here because he's just
4:23
Speaker 1: so well excused, so well acted. Like all the voice
4:27
Speaker 1: actors that they got are just incredibly good for this.
4:31
Speaker 1: Uh And I think uh square or square Enix sometimes,
4:36
Speaker 1: particularly File Fantasy, has a problem where they can get
4:39
Speaker 1: a little pretentious, and remake sometimes gets a little bit
4:41
Speaker 1: into that territory. But it does not feel as egregious
4:45
Speaker 1: to me in this as I've seen it in other things.
4:47
Speaker 1: Like they know that Family seven is beloved and they
4:50
Speaker 1: are milking that for money, clearly, but they don't feel
4:53
Speaker 1: like they're saying like, oh, you need to be impressed
4:56
Speaker 1: with everything here. They are actually trying to legitimately impress
4:59
Speaker 1: you by the g Zone merits. It's a very high
5:03
Speaker 1: budget game like it. I think one of the things
5:05
Speaker 1: I saw somebody say after it came out was you
5:08
Speaker 1: can feel the money being spent in every shot of
5:10
Speaker 1: this game, like it's just like massively higher budget than
5:15
Speaker 1: like any other j RPG ever gets Yeah, anyway, that's
5:20
Speaker 1: kind of a bunch of rambling thoughts, But I know
5:21
Speaker 1: I really enjoyed it. When I first played it, I
5:23
Speaker 1: was coming off on May seven original, liking it more
5:26
Speaker 1: than I expected to given that I was playing it
5:28
Speaker 1: like twenty years too late, But coming into five Ay
5:32
Speaker 1: seven remake, I was like, man, I'm on board with
5:37
Speaker 1: most of the decisions they made here, certainly from a
5:39
Speaker 1: gameplay perspective, I love the combat system, like it's this
5:42
Speaker 1: weird hybrid turn based and action system, probably more action
5:46
Speaker 1: than not, but you have this like pause to go
5:48
Speaker 1: into menus thing, which I think they did actually pretty well.
5:52
Speaker 1: But it still feels like it's related to the original
5:54
Speaker 1: combat system, so you can still like transition and kind
5:56
Speaker 1: of understand what's going on. You just have to be
5:58
Speaker 1: ready to do a lot more action. And the story,
6:02
Speaker 1: I think we can go probably come back to this later.
6:05
Speaker 1: I do think because they're stretching this out into three games,
6:09
Speaker 1: they drag out the story a little too much in
6:11
Speaker 1: some places, Like there are some things I just don't
6:14
Speaker 1: feel like I needed. I did not need that entire
6:17
Speaker 1: walk through like the under City with Cloud and Earth
6:20
Speaker 1: before they get to Wallmarket. I don't feel like I
6:22
Speaker 1: needed that gigantic sequence there. But it was like one
6:26
Speaker 1: screen in the original or like the Ghost Train. Though
6:31
Speaker 1: I'm more on board probably with the Ghost Train part
6:33
Speaker 1: than with the other, but again it's like one screen expanded.
6:36
Speaker 1: So anyway, that's a bunch of rambling thoughts which we
6:39
Speaker 1: can come back to. But I enjoyed it overall. Yeah,
6:42
Speaker 1: and I definitely understand why some of the long term
6:45
Speaker 1: fans don't like how much it is different, because obviously
6:48
Speaker 1: there is a lot that's different gameplay, story and whatnot.
6:52
Speaker 1: But honestly, that's kind of what I wanted. Because I've
6:56
Speaker 1: played the original, I don't necessarily need just that with
6:59
Speaker 1: better graphics, like you know, so I feel like it
7:01
Speaker 1: needs some new angles that What I really like about
7:04
Speaker 1: this game is that it isn't a straight remake. That
7:08
Speaker 1: it is that you said something like a sequel, and
7:10
Speaker 1: we can talk about how that gets frayed sometimes, but
7:13
Speaker 1: you know, now that I've played remake, played some portion
7:17
Speaker 1: of Rebirth, I'm very comfortable calling it a sequel. I mean, obviously,
7:21
Speaker 1: it's having a conversation with things that you should already know,
7:25
Speaker 1: things that, in a certain sense, have already happened, like
7:28
Speaker 1: you're you're supposed to recognize, like some things are just
7:31
Speaker 1: not what they should be. And I feel like that
7:33
Speaker 1: only makes sense with the backdrop of the original. And
7:36
Speaker 1: so even though you're walking a lot of the same steps,
7:38
Speaker 1: like it's it's it's acting as if the original is
7:42
Speaker 1: still there in some world, some universe, some timeline, and so,
7:47
Speaker 1: you know, like when Stephrol shows up really early on
7:49
Speaker 1: in remake, where in the original he doesn't show up
7:53
Speaker 1: until much later on, but he shows up very early
7:56
Speaker 1: in remake, And at first I didn't really like that.
7:58
Speaker 1: I felt like they were kind of messing up the
8:00
Speaker 1: character of Suffarroth. But when you who for much of
8:05
Speaker 1: like the first third or so of the original, you know,
8:07
Speaker 1: he's kind of this boogeyman type figure where you don't
8:11
Speaker 1: really see him, you just sort of see his effects,
8:13
Speaker 1: you just sort of feel his presence. But I'm actually
8:17
Speaker 1: okay with what they do with him in remake, recognizing
8:22
Speaker 1: that he is not exactly the same Suffarrath of the original,
8:27
Speaker 1: that he is intentionally messing with things, like he's intentionally
8:30
Speaker 1: showing up where he's not supposed to show up, and
8:32
Speaker 1: that's part of the story, and so I think understood
8:35
Speaker 1: in those terms, I'm very much okay with with that
8:37
Speaker 1: sort of thing. Some of the expansions that they did,
8:39
Speaker 1: like you know, we took the earths under city or
8:41
Speaker 1: the various things you do in the slums, like part
8:44
Speaker 1: of it is just to make it a bit more gamy,
8:46
Speaker 1: but also part of it is to make it more cinematic. Really,
8:50
Speaker 1: I mean, this is a very cinematically oriented game, where
8:53
Speaker 1: like there's a lot of cut scenes, a lot of
8:55
Speaker 1: it is focused on the story, and so you know,
8:58
Speaker 1: they even that that scene with Earth where going around,
9:00
Speaker 1: the hopping around the rooftop show whatever, you know. I
9:02
Speaker 1: think part of that is meant to kind of deepen
9:05
Speaker 1: their relationship, deep in that connection. I mean, I even
9:09
Speaker 1: appreciated her her mentioning of moseying. We're still mosying in
9:15
Speaker 1: final Phtasay seven, So I appreciate that. So, you know,
9:17
Speaker 1: I feel like even where they did maybe stretch out
9:19
Speaker 1: a little bit too much, I feel like it's still
9:22
Speaker 1: doing something, especially on the character level. Typically there's more
9:25
Speaker 1: times than not, and so yeah, so I don't know,
9:27
Speaker 1: I very much appreciate the general feel. I appreciate a
9:32
Speaker 1: lot of the changes that they made. I really can't
9:35
Speaker 1: compare the mechanics of this game to anything else because
9:37
Speaker 1: I really haven't played any other modern JRPGs. Closest I
9:41
Speaker 1: can get is Claire Obscurer, which is a French RPG,
9:45
Speaker 1: which i'd be similar genre, I guess, but that's about
9:48
Speaker 1: the extent of my modern gaming up to this point,
9:51
Speaker 1: so I can really compare to that. But just comparing
9:53
Speaker 1: it to the original. I don't know. I appreciate that
9:56
Speaker 1: they're having a conversation with it rather than doing a
9:59
Speaker 1: straight remake, which makes me think more appreciative of the
10:02
Speaker 1: changes than some people might be who just want everything
10:04
Speaker 1: to be the same, which I just don't really understand
10:06
Speaker 1: when we already have that. Yeah, that's a good use
10:11
Speaker 1: of that term conversation, I think, which I don't always
10:14
Speaker 1: use that term with like storytelling myself, but in here
10:17
Speaker 1: I think it works where it's it's really deliberately playing
10:21
Speaker 1: with your knowledge of the original, and I don't know
10:26
Speaker 1: how how much you want to go into like speculation
10:28
Speaker 1: as to what the heck is going on, like with
10:29
Speaker 1: Sepharroth and stuff this earlier. But yeah, so I remember
10:33
Speaker 1: right after I finished it where I was like incredibly
10:35
Speaker 1: confused after the end and I started and I listened
10:37
Speaker 1: to this other podcast where somebody was giving me his
10:40
Speaker 1: giving me giving the beat the listeners his take on
10:43
Speaker 1: what happened. I was like, that is super interesting if
10:46
Speaker 1: they're actually going that direction. I think the general idea
10:49
Speaker 1: there was that the sephar off that you see at
10:52
Speaker 1: the beginning that you were talking about, where he comes
10:54
Speaker 1: in is not the same sepher Off as you see
10:56
Speaker 1: in a lot of the other places, and it is
10:58
Speaker 1: not the same seffar Off you saw in a lot
11:00
Speaker 1: of the original eighty seven. The idea there is that's
11:04
Speaker 1: like a time traveling stuff for Off from the future
11:06
Speaker 1: coming in to mess with everything and to reac Havoc,
11:10
Speaker 1: which I'm not completely sure without spoiling rebirth, I'm not
11:15
Speaker 1: completely sure if I hold it that theory still or not.
11:17
Speaker 1: But there are definitely multiverse shenanigans going on there, and
11:22
Speaker 1: there's a sense of like just as it's very meta
11:27
Speaker 1: in this way, and that we know what should happen
11:30
Speaker 1: because we played the original and in FAY seven remake,
11:34
Speaker 1: there's some forces which I think are represented by those
11:37
Speaker 1: ghosts that also know what's supposed to happen and are
11:41
Speaker 1: deliberately trying to force it to happen. So when things
11:44
Speaker 1: start deviating, they come into play and start trying to
11:47
Speaker 1: force it to happen again. So like the typical example
11:52
Speaker 1: side is like when Cloud almost bypasses Earth, they like
11:56
Speaker 1: attack Era, so he'll come over there. And I think
11:59
Speaker 1: another one is, oh my goodness, is it Wedge who does
12:03
Speaker 1: not die? Where he does in the original, and when
12:08
Speaker 1: the plate's falling around that time, right, So he doesn't
12:10
Speaker 1: die there in this version, but then later on I
12:13
Speaker 1: think the ghosts go in and try and kill him, right,
12:15
Speaker 1: they throw him out a window or something, Yeah, exactly,
12:18
Speaker 1: and I think he actually does die there. I think
12:20
Speaker 1: it's Wedge who still somehow survives in this version, but
12:23
Speaker 1: maybe not in the same reality. It's very confusing, but yeah,
12:28
Speaker 1: it's it's playing off that notion of like some force,
12:31
Speaker 1: like in game force is actually trying to make things
12:34
Speaker 1: happen the same way, and you end up fighting against
12:37
Speaker 1: that force in the end, which is wild, right, And
12:40
Speaker 1: on some level Earth has knowledge of the things the
12:43
Speaker 1: way that things are supposed to be, but the Whispers
12:46
Speaker 1: keep stealing that from so she doesn't, you know, share
12:49
Speaker 1: too much. I guess, so that the planet is kind
12:51
Speaker 1: of fighting against itself all those and it's the plane
12:53
Speaker 1: it's allowing Earth to have that knowledge. But yeah, and
12:59
Speaker 1: you know, it's kind of an interesting dynamic. I mean, obviously,
13:01
Speaker 1: the whole point of the Whispers is so they can
13:04
Speaker 1: be defeated and then they can do different things moving forward. Right,
13:07
Speaker 1: Basement broken, but go back to Sufferroth I mean my understanding,
13:11
Speaker 1: and you know I've not finished rebirth it, so I
13:13
Speaker 1: don't know what is explained there. But my understanding is
13:17
Speaker 1: that when Cloud more or less killed Sufferroth at the
13:23
Speaker 1: Niebelheim incident, you know, he stabs them, throws them to
13:26
Speaker 1: the live stream. You know, at that point stephf Roth,
13:29
Speaker 1: you know, between his genova cells and his unconquerable will
13:33
Speaker 1: or something, you know, he maintained some of his consciousness
13:35
Speaker 1: in the life stream, which the life stream itself is
13:38
Speaker 1: sort of the connecting point of all these possible worlds, right,
13:42
Speaker 1: and so this Seffroth, as he's flowing around the life stream,
13:44
Speaker 1: he sees how things could play out. And so now
13:47
Speaker 1: he knows, at least on some level, like what to avoid.
13:50
Speaker 1: I don't get the impression he has perfect knowledge, but
13:52
Speaker 1: he at least has some knowledge enough to recognize that
13:55
Speaker 1: if he goes down this path, it's not going to
13:58
Speaker 1: go well for him. So you know, that's why he's
14:00
Speaker 1: trying to mess things up, trying to get the whispers
14:01
Speaker 1: to show up so that Cloud will go and defeat
14:04
Speaker 1: this arbiter of fate. It's not the Sepharroth of the original,
14:07
Speaker 1: but it is a Sepharroth who has some awareness of
14:10
Speaker 1: the Seffarroth of the original, which I think they're really
14:13
Speaker 1: trying to push that point when yeah, at the end
14:16
Speaker 1: of this game, when you're fighting Sepharroth and cloud unleashes
14:20
Speaker 1: this omni slash on them, Youth knows how to block
14:22
Speaker 1: every hit because he's seen this happen before, and so, yeah,
14:28
Speaker 1: and so it's it's not the same Seffroth, but it
14:30
Speaker 1: could further back on the branch, I suppose. Yeah, And
14:34
Speaker 1: even in the original, the original even played a lot
14:37
Speaker 1: of shenanigans with what is the real Sepharroth here, because
14:41
Speaker 1: there's this notion that there's all these like partial clones
14:44
Speaker 1: I guess of Sepharroth running around and you don't see
14:46
Speaker 1: the real sephar Off until you go to the crater
14:49
Speaker 1: at the end, I think, right, but you see a
14:52
Speaker 1: Sepharroth several times before that who just then transforms into
14:55
Speaker 1: something else. Right, Basically, the real Separoth is in the crater,
15:00
Speaker 1: but he's able to project his will to all these
15:03
Speaker 1: Genova cells that are here and there, and that's what
15:06
Speaker 1: you're engaging with for the majority of the game until
15:08
Speaker 1: you get to the real Separath. Yeah, and then remake
15:11
Speaker 1: is just extending that those Shenanigans further with like yet
15:14
Speaker 1: another kind of Sepharroth. So it's like, how many of
15:17
Speaker 1: these guys are there? Right? I will say that I'm
15:19
Speaker 1: still not decided if I if I like this Seffroth
15:23
Speaker 1: or not even just like not necessarily what he's doing,
15:26
Speaker 1: but just even the way he's portrayed like that between
15:28
Speaker 1: the voice acting, I don't know. I feel like, if
15:30
Speaker 1: there's anyone where I questioned the voice, I feel like
15:32
Speaker 1: a Sepharroth. I feel like he's just not quite ominous enough.
15:36
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't know, well for what it's worth,
15:39
Speaker 1: as I understand it. In the third game, they just
15:41
Speaker 1: announced Seth has a new voice actor, so maybe you
15:43
Speaker 1: will like that one better. Maybe I've not heard you know,
15:46
Speaker 1: You're just not scary enough to me. I don't know.
15:48
Speaker 1: He does gloat very well, though, like you can just
15:51
Speaker 1: feel the smarminess whenever he says anything. It's true, but
15:55
Speaker 1: I guess, like so again, like we were talking about earlier,
15:59
Speaker 1: so you have nostalgia for the original because you grew
16:02
Speaker 1: up with it, which and I don't so like i'd
16:05
Speaker 1: be interested to like pick your thoughts more on that. So,
16:08
Speaker 1: what were your feelings, Like you said you were on
16:11
Speaker 1: board with, like how they handled the characters. Do you
16:13
Speaker 1: feel like the events, at least the parts that are
16:16
Speaker 1: covering this game, Do you feel like the events that
16:18
Speaker 1: you remembered well from the original were handled well in
16:21
Speaker 1: this game? Yeah, I think so. I mean, obviously they're
16:26
Speaker 1: adding a bit. I mean, like the other members of Avalanche,
16:30
Speaker 1: Jesse and Biggs and Wedge, they don't really have any
16:32
Speaker 1: character really in the original. They're very minimal, and so
16:36
Speaker 1: they more or less got got invented for this game.
16:39
Speaker 1: But you know, other than that, I mean, I feel
16:41
Speaker 1: like most of the beats hit pretty well, dealing with
16:46
Speaker 1: you know, respecting the original while still keeping it it fresh.
16:49
Speaker 1: And yeah, that's largely what I appreciate about it, that
16:52
Speaker 1: they're not really deconstructing anything, they're not really undermining anything.
16:56
Speaker 1: They add some sure, but I feel like it's still
16:58
Speaker 1: very much in line with the thing that's happening in
17:00
Speaker 1: the original, or even you know, get more perspective on
17:03
Speaker 1: the Turks and you know, yeah, so I don't know,
17:07
Speaker 1: I think that pretty much all of their expansions in
17:10
Speaker 1: the character level is very much in harmony with what's
17:13
Speaker 1: happening in the original. And I'm somebody who likes to
17:17
Speaker 1: enjoy things to begin with, and so well, I have
17:20
Speaker 1: no problem getting embittered. I feel like I need to.
17:24
Speaker 1: I don't know. I find that it's very easy for
17:28
Speaker 1: me to enjoy and to appreciate this game, on top
17:31
Speaker 1: of the nosolgia that I already have for it. Yeah,
17:33
Speaker 1: you make a good point, like when you said it's
17:35
Speaker 1: not deconstructing, because that's been our complaint with some other stories,
17:38
Speaker 1: particularly like a lot of sequels, especially ones that are
17:41
Speaker 1: made long after the original, go down that deconstruction route,
17:44
Speaker 1: which is very frustrating for those of us who watched
17:47
Speaker 1: the original. Like this is like the core of my
17:49
Speaker 1: complaint against the Last Jedi, right right. But Remix does
17:53
Speaker 1: not do that. Like like you said, it has a
17:55
Speaker 1: clear affection for the original, and you can tell they
17:59
Speaker 1: thought long and hard about what are the most impactful
18:02
Speaker 1: parts of the original and how do they do those
18:04
Speaker 1: things justice as well as expanding on things. And it's
18:08
Speaker 1: clear the new director had like his own vision for
18:10
Speaker 1: things he wanted to add on. That's something, But he
18:12
Speaker 1: still managed to respect the original while he was also
18:16
Speaker 1: doing that, which I think is is legitimately commendable from
18:20
Speaker 1: a storytelling perspective. Yeah. I mean it's hard for me
18:23
Speaker 1: to say this regarding any kind of remake, but I
18:27
Speaker 1: feel like that on the heart level, I mean, it's
18:30
Speaker 1: clear improvements over the original that when you look at
18:34
Speaker 1: Barrett's relationship with Marlene, for example, I feel like that
18:37
Speaker 1: is executed very well, where you have just this big,
18:42
Speaker 1: strong character who has just such gentle affection for his child.
18:48
Speaker 1: I feel like that father daughter relationship is done in
18:50
Speaker 1: a way that's really heartening without being like sappy or
18:55
Speaker 1: or you know, corny, it feels very genuine. Or when
18:58
Speaker 1: the slum is destroyed after the falls, I feel like
19:01
Speaker 1: that sorrow is handled really well. And so on so
19:05
Speaker 1: many of these beats that are echoing the original, I
19:08
Speaker 1: feel like it takes them and it just even it
19:10
Speaker 1: deepens the heart of them even further where it allows
19:13
Speaker 1: me to feel things again as we're visiting the same material.
19:18
Speaker 1: And I think, and that for me is a very
19:20
Speaker 1: high praise to say that on any level a remake
19:23
Speaker 1: of such an iconic game could actually do something better.
19:27
Speaker 1: And I think that it does on that heart level. Yeah, yeah,
19:30
Speaker 1: I totally agree. And yeah, you mentioned earlier how they
19:33
Speaker 1: fletched out a lot of characters who just were basically
19:36
Speaker 1: almost throw away in the original, the Avalanche members in particular,
19:40
Speaker 1: Like this is the most stuff Jesse has ever gotten
19:44
Speaker 1: by like a mile. She has like an old chapter
19:47
Speaker 1: by it for herself almost like and I think I
19:53
Speaker 1: think they tell you in remake that she's actually what's
19:58
Speaker 1: her name, the opper singer whatever, who's on the posters.
20:02
Speaker 1: I can't remember the name, but like those were posters
20:05
Speaker 1: that were like in the original of like this opera
20:08
Speaker 1: that was really famous actress, and you find out Jesse
20:10
Speaker 1: is actually that character. It's like, I don't know if
20:12
Speaker 1: that was ever in the lore before this game, but
20:14
Speaker 1: it it makes her a much more interesting character that
20:17
Speaker 1: she has those multiple dimensions, right, it makes you care
20:21
Speaker 1: when she dies mm hm, which she does still die
20:25
Speaker 1: in this one. I don't remember if that part changed meaningfully,
20:27
Speaker 1: because she dies like right before the plate falls right
20:30
Speaker 1: like up in the Tower means the same. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
20:34
Speaker 1: it's Bigs and Wedge, who they mess around with quite
20:37
Speaker 1: a bit on what happens with them, And then yeah,
20:40
Speaker 1: you have like a final shot of Bigs like at
20:43
Speaker 1: the very end, like hanging out in the house where
20:46
Speaker 1: Marlene is. Right now, I do wonder why why did
20:51
Speaker 1: the whispers kill Wedge and not Bigs. I mean, that's
20:55
Speaker 1: an excellent question. Uh though, I think I'm trying to
20:59
Speaker 1: remember or how this works because it's been a while
21:02
Speaker 1: since I went through this game. But I think it
21:05
Speaker 1: might be implied the Bigs who survived is in a
21:09
Speaker 1: different universe somehow, But I don't know how it's split there.
21:15
Speaker 1: I think something split like when you go and kill
21:18
Speaker 1: like the Whisper bosses at the very end, which this
21:24
Speaker 1: kind of spoils the very beginning of Rebirth, right but
21:27
Speaker 1: the place where you start in Rebirth, I think is
21:30
Speaker 1: in that alternate universe, and then you played most of
21:34
Speaker 1: the rest of the game in the main universe. And
21:37
Speaker 1: they kind of allude to that in the ending of
21:39
Speaker 1: remake where you see like as they're walking away from Midguard,
21:44
Speaker 1: you see Zach like kind of blipping it and out
21:46
Speaker 1: of existence, but they don't see him or something like that,
21:49
Speaker 1: because I think Zach is supposed to die like right
21:51
Speaker 1: before that part in the original lore, and I am
21:56
Speaker 1: not a Zach expert at all. I just know he's
21:58
Speaker 1: supposed to be dead. But I think it's like, I
22:01
Speaker 1: don't know exactly what they're gonna do with that alternate universe.
22:04
Speaker 1: I just know it's there, and I think that's where
22:05
Speaker 1: Wedges I didn't wonder. I did wonder why Zach would
22:10
Speaker 1: show up after the Midgar events. Well, I don't know.
22:14
Speaker 1: Maybe maybe that's the question for the next next episode.
22:18
Speaker 1: I don't actually know the answer any better, even after
22:20
Speaker 1: I even played Reavers, I think reader did more to
22:23
Speaker 1: confuse me than to answer my question, because I Zach
22:27
Speaker 1: was supposed to die like right before Cloud first gets
22:30
Speaker 1: to Midgar, which would have been before all this, So
22:34
Speaker 1: I don't I don't know why he's walking in after
22:36
Speaker 1: all of that happened. It's possible they changed the timing.
22:39
Speaker 1: I'm not really sure. Yeah, because I don't know, I
22:42
Speaker 1: don't know. We can talk about that more next time,
22:44
Speaker 1: I guess, even if we don't have answers to it.
22:45
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's I don't know. It's definitely interesting some
22:51
Speaker 1: of these directions that they're going. And you played Integrade
22:58
Speaker 1: right the espential you I don't know how much it
23:02
Speaker 1: really added, but it was interesting her at this point
23:05
Speaker 1: in the story. I guess, yeah, it was fun, and
23:09
Speaker 1: I feel like that was a good way to bring
23:12
Speaker 1: her into the scene without really changing anything, because I mean,
23:15
Speaker 1: as far as I can tell, nothing really significant happens
23:18
Speaker 1: lowerwise and the broader story with with her inclusion. I mean,
23:21
Speaker 1: I know she shows up in Rebirth and there's some
23:24
Speaker 1: connections there as far as what happened in this DLC,
23:27
Speaker 1: but I don't know. I thought it was fun. I mean,
23:29
Speaker 1: she's she's obviously like a theater kid. I don't remember
23:35
Speaker 1: how annoying I found her in the original, but I
23:37
Speaker 1: find her legitimately. I mean, I'm kind of annoying an
23:42
Speaker 1: original just because she steals all your material. But as
23:44
Speaker 1: far as her personality, you know, she's not. Yeah, that's true.
23:48
Speaker 1: But they added like a whole new character with her right,
23:50
Speaker 1: which was her friend brother. I don't remember what his
23:53
Speaker 1: relationship was to her friend, so there's that. And I
24:00
Speaker 1: know there's a lot of politics stuff that they added
24:02
Speaker 1: between Midgar and Wu Tai, but I don't remember how
24:06
Speaker 1: much of that was in remake versus Rebirth, because there's
24:09
Speaker 1: a lot more of that in Rebirth. I feel, yeah,
24:12
Speaker 1: I mean there's talk about that in remake. I mean
24:14
Speaker 1: when Shinra's blaming Avalanche for stuff that it, you know,
24:19
Speaker 1: they claim that they're being funded by Wu Taie and that,
24:23
Speaker 1: so they spin this whole political narrative regarding basically shifting
24:27
Speaker 1: blame from themselves to this foreign funded terrorist group. So
24:33
Speaker 1: I think it I think it's interesting to kind of
24:35
Speaker 1: add that political nature. I mean there's something of that
24:39
Speaker 1: in the original in that we know that Shinra attacked
24:43
Speaker 1: Wu Tai at some point, but so much of that
24:45
Speaker 1: does get expanded in these games, and I think it's
24:48
Speaker 1: an interesting element of world building. Yeah, and I think
24:51
Speaker 1: that's a legitimately meaningful area of world building to expand upon,
24:54
Speaker 1: because I feel like the original gay barely touched on that. Yeah,
24:58
Speaker 1: but like that w it is like a big deal
25:01
Speaker 1: in like whatever that planet's called geopolitics, because otherwise you
25:08
Speaker 1: kind of would normally think of like Shinra just as
25:11
Speaker 1: like a world government. They rule everything is what it
25:13
Speaker 1: feels like a lot of the time, but then then
25:15
Speaker 1: you are reminded, Oh, there's this other country out here
25:17
Speaker 1: that is not associated with them and is actually like
25:19
Speaker 1: in conflict with them. So I think that's especially with
25:23
Speaker 1: them expanding like that's the thing they need to expand
25:25
Speaker 1: and clearly in especially in Integrade and going forward, how
25:29
Speaker 1: they use her going forward, they want to use UFI
25:31
Speaker 1: to kind of represent a lot of that angle of conflict.
25:36
Speaker 1: But yeah, and Rebirth does some slightly interesting other things
25:40
Speaker 1: as well, which we can come back to and we
25:42
Speaker 1: discuss that one. But yeah, but that's again, that's another
25:45
Speaker 1: example to just fleshing out a bunch of random things.
25:47
Speaker 1: So like the Chinra employees get way more stuff. I
25:51
Speaker 1: feel like, so like the guy who I forget his name,
25:55
Speaker 1: who controls the cat Kate Sith. Yeah was what was
26:01
Speaker 1: his name? Keep forgetting that Reeve Reeve. Yeah, that's him. Yeah,
26:07
Speaker 1: Like he gets like scenes at the office and you're like, oh,
26:11
Speaker 1: he's just a dude in a computer like any of
26:13
Speaker 1: us at are cubical jobs. But he is like on
26:17
Speaker 1: the side, he's controlling this other thing. And you don't
26:19
Speaker 1: know in remake if you didn't play the original that
26:22
Speaker 1: he's the guy controlling Kate Seth, so you don't have
26:24
Speaker 1: that background, but more meaningful later, right, Yeah, he just
26:30
Speaker 1: comes across as that one shiner guy who kind of
26:31
Speaker 1: has the conscience. M hmm. Yeah, And you get all
26:34
Speaker 1: these meetings with the board, and he's the guy who's like,
26:38
Speaker 1: I don't know about all these guys, and everybody else
26:40
Speaker 1: is just like comically evil all the time. Uh so
26:44
Speaker 1: uh yeah, yeah, I like that that kind of stuff. Yeah, No,
26:49
Speaker 1: we're talking about adding stuff in, you know, in the
26:52
Speaker 1: uh Integrate. I don't remember any of that underground stuff
26:57
Speaker 1: from the original of like the you know that the
27:00
Speaker 1: final boss, you know, who comes out of the ground.
27:03
Speaker 1: To be honest, I have no idea what was happening
27:05
Speaker 1: with any of that. Oh yeah, the boss of Integrated,
27:07
Speaker 1: the final one, the like weird, like I don't even
27:10
Speaker 1: know how to describe him, Like he had like black
27:12
Speaker 1: smoke smoke around him. Yeah, that guy. I have no
27:14
Speaker 1: idea what was happening with any of that? Yeah, that
27:16
Speaker 1: was like what the heck is that? I don't know.
27:19
Speaker 1: I don't think Rebirth ever followed up on it, so
27:21
Speaker 1: I don't know what was going on. Okay, maybe revelation
27:26
Speaker 1: will tell us. Who knows, got a lot of things
27:28
Speaker 1: to deal with in that game. Yeah, clearly, Okay, Okay, Yeah,
27:33
Speaker 1: I didn't know if I had just missed something, but
27:35
Speaker 1: that was that was weird. Nope, I was just as
27:37
Speaker 1: confused as you, okay, because it ended it was like, Okay,
27:40
Speaker 1: I guess we'd beat it. Cool. Well, I don't know
27:43
Speaker 1: what the point of that was a boss? Is there
27:49
Speaker 1: anything else that we should talk about? I guess. Like so,
27:53
Speaker 1: I'm also kind of curious how you felt about It's
27:55
Speaker 1: not sorry, but how you felt about the combat system,
27:58
Speaker 1: because I know that's another divisive area and I know
28:02
Speaker 1: Final Fantasy fandom has had complaints about Final Fasy games
28:08
Speaker 1: focusing so much on action combat, and this game just
28:10
Speaker 1: does more of that. It takes a game that had
28:12
Speaker 1: not purely turn based combat but close enough, and then
28:15
Speaker 1: makes it more of like almost like a Batman Arkham
28:19
Speaker 1: City kind of combat system where you're just slashing every
28:24
Speaker 1: which way. How did you feel adjusting to that? You know,
28:29
Speaker 1: at first I wasn't so sure in that I felt
28:33
Speaker 1: like I was button mashing at first. But you know,
28:35
Speaker 1: you hit a button, he just you know, you're who
28:37
Speaker 1: up your controlling will just jump around to the nearest enemy,
28:39
Speaker 1: and so it kind of felt like that at first,
28:41
Speaker 1: but over time I actually came to really enjoy it.
28:45
Speaker 1: Now I don't know about any of the other recent
28:47
Speaker 1: Final Fantasies. The newest Final Fantasy that I've played other
28:50
Speaker 1: than this was ten, and so I haven't gotten past
28:54
Speaker 1: any of the turn based stuff, and so I don't
28:55
Speaker 1: really know how that's handled elsewhere. But over time I
28:58
Speaker 1: actually did enjoy start enjoying this quite a bit. I
29:01
Speaker 1: still feel like I would benefit from being able to,
29:05
Speaker 1: at least on some levels script the AI am not controlling,
29:09
Speaker 1: but I feel like the as I've really gotten into,
29:12
Speaker 1: specially rebrowth. Now I think I decided I really like
29:15
Speaker 1: this system. It just took me some time to get
29:18
Speaker 1: used to. But you know, it feels fast paced, but
29:21
Speaker 1: as you said earlier, you can still pause it and
29:24
Speaker 1: you know, use your action bar, and so there is
29:26
Speaker 1: that sort of turn based element to it. So I
29:29
Speaker 1: don't know, I think I enjoy it overall. I know
29:32
Speaker 1: you're a big fan, right yeah, Now, remind me real quick.
29:36
Speaker 1: Don't they have an option that tries to more closely
29:39
Speaker 1: emulate a turn based system. I think that works. I
29:43
Speaker 1: never did it, just because I don't know. I wanted
29:46
Speaker 1: to play this game how I feel like it was
29:47
Speaker 1: supposed to be played, but that was my feeling as well,
29:49
Speaker 1: so I never touched it. But I remember hearing, Oh,
29:52
Speaker 1: that got the cether mondold feel like the old one better, Like,
29:54
Speaker 1: how well could you really do that with this system?
29:56
Speaker 1: I'm not I'm not super confident would work well. But yeah,
30:00
Speaker 1: and Rebirth, Like like you said, I think Rebirth actually
30:03
Speaker 1: improves his combat SYSM by quite a bit. Like I
30:05
Speaker 1: enjoyed it a lot in remake, but they add some
30:07
Speaker 1: very key things in Rebirth that make it'll just improve
30:10
Speaker 1: it a lot. I think the big thing for me
30:12
Speaker 1: was they add this is getting into a different game.
30:15
Speaker 1: But like if they add to synergy attacks, which are
30:18
Speaker 1: kind of like dual text from Chrono Trigger, which is
30:20
Speaker 1: like one of the greatest things ever that I don't
30:22
Speaker 1: understand why more jrpts don't use. But that basically forces
30:26
Speaker 1: you to switch characters a lot more, which they clearly
30:30
Speaker 1: want you to do and remake, but they don't do enough,
30:32
Speaker 1: I think, to encourage that. But it's just essential because
30:37
Speaker 1: that's the only way you're going to activate your synergy
30:39
Speaker 1: attacks in Rebirth, because your ATV bars will only fill
30:42
Speaker 1: up meaningfully on the character you're actually playing as, So
30:45
Speaker 1: you like, build somebody up, all right, I got a
30:46
Speaker 1: bar on him, Go over bear all right, I got
30:48
Speaker 1: a bar on him. Now I could activate an attack,
30:52
Speaker 1: whereas remake you could legitimately go through like most of
30:55
Speaker 1: the game being like I don't want to play anybody else,
30:57
Speaker 1: I just want to play a Cloud. That's mostly what
30:58
Speaker 1: I did. Yeah, there's a lot and some characters, like
31:02
Speaker 1: Barrett in particular, I think are not fleshed out enough
31:05
Speaker 1: in terms of how they play to be super fun.
31:08
Speaker 1: A lot of the time, you can there is enough depth.
31:11
Speaker 1: You can have a lot of fun with him, but
31:15
Speaker 1: it's not as immediately obvious like how fun he would be,
31:18
Speaker 1: so you just naturally stay in the character who you're
31:21
Speaker 1: used to and who is fun to play, which would
31:22
Speaker 1: be Cloud. Other than him, I think Tifa might be
31:26
Speaker 1: about as fun to play as Cloud is because she's
31:28
Speaker 1: just darting around touching everything. Earth is harder to enjoy,
31:33
Speaker 1: I think because she attacks really slowly. She likes to
31:36
Speaker 1: attack from afar. You're building up magic attacks, and the
31:39
Speaker 1: magic attacks are cool, it just takes more effort to
31:41
Speaker 1: get to them. And Cloud's just like going and like
31:43
Speaker 1: I'm gonna cut stuff, and you just cut things a bunch.
31:47
Speaker 1: So yeah, there's that, and rebirth also adds obviously other characters,
31:51
Speaker 1: so there's a lot more variety that you can play
31:53
Speaker 1: with there, and yeah, there's just a lot of exchanges.
31:57
Speaker 1: But anyway, yeah, I did really enjoy it. I've played
32:00
Speaker 1: a lot of other modern JPGs. I'm like the JRPG
32:04
Speaker 1: guy in this group, and there's an interesting trend of
32:09
Speaker 1: recent JPGs that try to do some kind of hybrid
32:13
Speaker 1: of action and turn based combat, like like my favorite series,
32:17
Speaker 1: Trails is doing this too, where it's not doesn't do
32:20
Speaker 1: it the same as Remake, but a lot of those
32:24
Speaker 1: recent games have where you can fight things on the
32:26
Speaker 1: field and you could stay an actual combout the entire
32:29
Speaker 1: time if you want, but then you could just switch
32:31
Speaker 1: to turn base at any time, and usually you have
32:33
Speaker 1: more interesting combat options which you switch over to it,
32:35
Speaker 1: so it doesn't courage you, so you so you like
32:38
Speaker 1: do stuff in action to soft enemies up, then you
32:40
Speaker 1: switch to turn base where you can wail on them.
32:43
Speaker 1: And I think, I want to say metaphor Refendasio uses
32:46
Speaker 1: a similar system, but I have not played that one.
32:50
Speaker 1: But Remake is more you don't switch necessarily between action
32:55
Speaker 1: and turn based. It's just like at each step of
32:58
Speaker 1: the battle, you make a decision of am I going
33:00
Speaker 1: to just cut things with buttons or am I going
33:03
Speaker 1: to actually go into the menu and select, like I'm
33:05
Speaker 1: going to use this magic attack, and if you want,
33:08
Speaker 1: you can customize it to where like you've got hot
33:10
Speaker 1: keys mapped certain attacks. But I never really did that
33:12
Speaker 1: because I can never remember, like in the heat of
33:14
Speaker 1: the moment, Okay, what did I map the triangle button two?
33:17
Speaker 1: Like I don't know that was fireball or like whatever,
33:22
Speaker 1: omni slash or whatever. So I think that's a limit break.
33:26
Speaker 1: But either way, yeah, it's it's also clearly trying to
33:30
Speaker 1: be cool, which, as I mentioned in the other podcast,
33:33
Speaker 1: like it's clear a lot of things of Palm phasety
33:34
Speaker 1: seven are designed to be cool, and the combat system
33:38
Speaker 1: just milks that for all it's worth. Like it is
33:43
Speaker 1: hilarious to me how much drama they put in all
33:47
Speaker 1: the boss battles, to where even your intro boss battle
33:50
Speaker 1: against like the Scorpion robot in the Reactor is this
33:53
Speaker 1: massive production with several phases of like, guys, this is
33:57
Speaker 1: like just a few minutes of just attack pack pack
34:00
Speaker 1: of the original They were like, no, we're gonna make
34:02
Speaker 1: a big deal out of this fight and they do those,
34:05
Speaker 1: like all of them, including fights that they added that
34:07
Speaker 1: were not even in the original. So yeah, they they
34:12
Speaker 1: want it to be as cinematic as they can in
34:14
Speaker 1: this game, and I feel like those I feel like
34:16
Speaker 1: it was well executed that one hand. Yeah, they're obviously
34:18
Speaker 1: milking some stuff here and they're stretching out the game
34:21
Speaker 1: and all these little things, but I feel like it
34:25
Speaker 1: just makes things more cinematic, makes things more intense, and
34:29
Speaker 1: the remake, I would say, more than Rebirth, is just
34:33
Speaker 1: heavily cinematic in its field, not even just in the cinematics,
34:38
Speaker 1: although it is that too. But I think the fact
34:40
Speaker 1: that you can't really change your party right the game
34:43
Speaker 1: forces you to depending on what the story wants to
34:45
Speaker 1: do at that moment. Things obviously get more open and
34:49
Speaker 1: you can get more choice when you get to the
34:51
Speaker 1: wide open world in the next game. But in this game,
34:54
Speaker 1: I really think it did well in you know, in
34:57
Speaker 1: that yes thing in Midguard, and so the whole world
35:00
Speaker 1: feels much smaller. It feels more you know, on the
35:03
Speaker 1: local level, and what that means is these small things
35:08
Speaker 1: get more attention. And I think that this is a
35:11
Speaker 1: very strong way to start out on this series and
35:14
Speaker 1: so well, some people might say that, okay, that they're
35:17
Speaker 1: getting unnecessarily intense in some of these battles and where
35:20
Speaker 1: they expand things here and there. I feel like it
35:22
Speaker 1: just adds to the intensity of the cinematic feel that
35:25
Speaker 1: this game is going for, and so I feel like
35:27
Speaker 1: it maintains its form well and executes that well. You know,
35:32
Speaker 1: when I'm first jumping into this game, not really knowing
35:35
Speaker 1: exactly what to expect, and you know, I get to
35:37
Speaker 1: that first boss battle and it is you know, I
35:40
Speaker 1: feel like I don't know if I'm going to win.
35:42
Speaker 1: I don't know, especially when I'm stilletting USA all the
35:44
Speaker 1: controls and stuff. I feel like it has the right
35:46
Speaker 1: level of intensity at least I'd appreciated that. Yeah, you
35:50
Speaker 1: made a good point earlier too about how it's building,
35:55
Speaker 1: Like even in the slow parts where I'm like, why
35:58
Speaker 1: why are we trapesing around in jump character for so long,
36:01
Speaker 1: You're still building up character connections. And it's this is
36:05
Speaker 1: one thing I think video games do really well when
36:08
Speaker 1: they're done right, Like, particularly charitgs like this is the
36:13
Speaker 1: slow burn of getting you attached to the characters. And
36:17
Speaker 1: there's one quality that I really love about about RPGs
36:22
Speaker 1: is that you have you feel mechanically your character's building
36:27
Speaker 1: up over time, because it's like when you were doing
36:33
Speaker 1: just ridiculous over the top moves to fight bosses later on,
36:37
Speaker 1: you've been several hours of building up your stats across
36:40
Speaker 1: battle after battle after battle with your characters, so you
36:42
Speaker 1: could believe they've built up to that point where they
36:44
Speaker 1: could do that, even though it's like completely unrealistic. And
36:49
Speaker 1: it's similar with like the story, right and with getting
36:51
Speaker 1: you attached to the characters. So although on one hand
36:53
Speaker 1: it's like why do we need to take the first
36:56
Speaker 1: eight hours of the original and make that a forty
36:57
Speaker 1: hour game by itself, you all also have just so
37:02
Speaker 1: much emotional build up of your attachment to everything that's
37:06
Speaker 1: going on, so that that makes it feel more impactful
37:11
Speaker 1: when there's things are getting delivered on later on in
37:14
Speaker 1: the story. And that's something that the original could still
37:18
Speaker 1: do and did have a lot of payoff that was
37:21
Speaker 1: very satisfying. But because the Big Guard part part was
37:24
Speaker 1: so short in a lot of places for the time,
37:27
Speaker 1: it was still long, but like for compared to this,
37:32
Speaker 1: like some of the things got glossed over that could
37:35
Speaker 1: have been more impactful, So like spending time with Marlene,
37:37
Speaker 1: for example, which gives you more attached to Barrett. Things
37:41
Speaker 1: like that, like those really strong like character moments just
37:44
Speaker 1: stretched out a bit I feel meaningful, or like getting
37:46
Speaker 1: to know Jesse and then she dies, like you said,
37:50
Speaker 1: because this is something I think you can't really easily
37:52
Speaker 1: get in like a two hour movie, as much like
37:55
Speaker 1: movies try very hard to make things impactful, but because
37:57
Speaker 1: you're spending such a relatively short amount of time with it,
38:00
Speaker 1: can't build up massive emotional impacts within one movie very
38:04
Speaker 1: easily without employing a lot of tricks. Like there's something
38:07
Speaker 1: to be said for spending time with something and then
38:11
Speaker 1: seeing something pay off because of that time you spend.
38:15
Speaker 1: So that's an area of start telling that I just
38:17
Speaker 1: find really valuable in games. Yeah, and that's one reason why.
38:21
Speaker 1: That's the main reason why I'm very much okay with
38:23
Speaker 1: how they're stretching things out. It's not like, you know,
38:25
Speaker 1: when they stretch out the Hobbit into three movies. Now
38:29
Speaker 1: we just have more stuff happening, but the stuff that's
38:31
Speaker 1: happening doesn't necessarily deepen the story that's being told. Whereas
38:35
Speaker 1: in this game, I really feel like the expansions, as
38:38
Speaker 1: I keep saying, it really do deepen the character connections, which,
38:43
Speaker 1: as you talked about with the original, I mean, this
38:44
Speaker 1: is a game about the characters more so than anything
38:47
Speaker 1: else about them as individuals, but especially in how they
38:50
Speaker 1: relate to each other. I mean every time in remake
38:55
Speaker 1: when Cloud spent a considerable amount of time with Earth,
38:59
Speaker 1: I keep just thinking this is not going to end
39:01
Speaker 1: well that I've as I mentioned last time, I'm still
39:07
Speaker 1: scarred from eight year old me seeing Earth getting paled
39:10
Speaker 1: my stuffer off. Yeah. I think one of my favorite
39:12
Speaker 1: lines is with Eric tells Cloud you can't fall in
39:15
Speaker 1: love with me. Don't do that, and as the viewer
39:19
Speaker 1: the player, you're like, oh, yeah, you should not fall
39:21
Speaker 1: in love with her, this will be traumatic for you. Yeah,
39:27
Speaker 1: And then you know instantly at the beginning of the
39:30
Speaker 1: next game, she's like all over him again. So yeah, yeah,
39:34
Speaker 1: And they they explore that relationship between them in really
39:38
Speaker 1: interesting ways when the reworth But yeah, we can come
39:40
Speaker 1: back to that later, but you can feel much more
39:43
Speaker 1: in how they handle her in these games where she
39:46
Speaker 1: has that attachment to Zach from her past, which I
39:50
Speaker 1: feel like I don't think I fully understood when I
39:53
Speaker 1: played the first game, but like in these games playing,
39:56
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, yeah, that makes it a really complicated
39:58
Speaker 1: relationship with Cloud because he reminds her of Zach, but
40:01
Speaker 1: he's not Zach. And then what does that mean for
40:04
Speaker 1: like how Cloud should perceive their relationship. There's some shenanigans there. Yeah,
40:10
Speaker 1: there's a lot of a lot of shenanigans going on
40:12
Speaker 1: with Earth and Cloud and obviously Tifa. It's it's it's complicated,
40:19
Speaker 1: definitely very complicated. But yeah, I think that was most
40:23
Speaker 1: of what I had to talk about, unless you had
40:25
Speaker 1: anything else delve into. Yeah, I mean in general, I mean,
40:31
Speaker 1: what do you think about the ending of this game?
40:34
Speaker 1: I mean, it's like it I get that they wanted
40:38
Speaker 1: to break fate in order to do different stuff moving forward. Also,
40:42
Speaker 1: it just seems really convenient though, that these Whispers sort
40:44
Speaker 1: of get invented out of nowhere for that purpose, And
40:47
Speaker 1: so I get it, and I'm glad that they're a
40:51
Speaker 1: fringing themselves up to add twist to the story and
40:54
Speaker 1: to deepen it. I think it's interesting what they're doing
40:57
Speaker 1: with the multiverse in a way that you know, I'm
41:00
Speaker 1: generally not a fan of Multiverse anymore. I think it's Marvels.
41:03
Speaker 1: I don't know, there's too much. It's too convenient as
41:06
Speaker 1: a way of just bringing back dead people. But I
41:08
Speaker 1: feel like in this game they're they're doing different interesting things.
41:10
Speaker 1: I'm okay with that, but on sort of the metal level,
41:13
Speaker 1: it sort of feels like the I know, the story
41:16
Speaker 1: of this game was created because they needed this device
41:21
Speaker 1: to give the narrative that they wanted to give, So
41:24
Speaker 1: I don't know how well it works internally as story element,
41:26
Speaker 1: but I don't know. What do you think about the
41:28
Speaker 1: whispers and all that fate stuff. Yeah, I have complex
41:33
Speaker 1: feelings about Multiverse that I don't know if I can
41:35
Speaker 1: articulate well. Because I really love mechanics of like having
41:39
Speaker 1: multiple worlds that are like in parallel. I don't know
41:43
Speaker 1: if like split timelines isn't necessarily my favorite version of that.
41:47
Speaker 1: And Michael Kaine has talked about this sum on his
41:52
Speaker 1: Twitter account, but I think he makes a good point
41:56
Speaker 1: that when you have say, infinite multiverses, I don't know,
42:00
Speaker 1: this setup is initially supposed to be infinite, you have
42:03
Speaker 1: this problem of which ones actually matter, because if in
42:06
Speaker 1: one the world explodes, we supposed to care about that
42:09
Speaker 1: universe or not, like did the people matter in that universe?
42:13
Speaker 1: And if the story does not draw you to care,
42:16
Speaker 1: it's effectively saying, yeah, we don't care, and so we
42:19
Speaker 1: only end up caring about the people in our universe.
42:22
Speaker 1: So if there's this other universe over here where where
42:26
Speaker 1: Zach lives, I'm like, well, that's not the universe I
42:28
Speaker 1: live in, so why should I care? And so that
42:32
Speaker 1: I think can make a little messy because you don't
42:35
Speaker 1: know how to attach properly to the characters. And in
42:37
Speaker 1: this story that's very important how you attach. But the
42:41
Speaker 1: what if element is actually legitimately interesting of like what
42:45
Speaker 1: if Big survived and like all these other things happened
42:49
Speaker 1: that didn't happen the same way, what would play out
42:52
Speaker 1: because we as humans love to talk about what if questions,
42:56
Speaker 1: So there it can be interesting as a story mechanic.
42:58
Speaker 1: So I don't know at this point how I feel
43:02
Speaker 1: about they handled it. The whispers, I kind of agree,
43:07
Speaker 1: feel kind of just there, like I don't understand, like
43:10
Speaker 1: they're clearly supposed to be part of this cosmic force
43:13
Speaker 1: that's what you're fighting at the end, And this is
43:14
Speaker 1: very this is kind of the jerpyg kill God's situation.
43:18
Speaker 1: It feels like where they just wanted a really epic
43:21
Speaker 1: boss for you to fight against, and finding fate is
43:23
Speaker 1: a very common trope jeripyges especially, so this is just
43:26
Speaker 1: another iteration of that. But yeah, I don't know. When
43:30
Speaker 1: I was finding those giant monsters at the end, I
43:31
Speaker 1: was like, I don't know why I care here, Like
43:35
Speaker 1: because I I played the original, I find with it
43:38
Speaker 1: plague out the same way, Like trying to create a
43:41
Speaker 1: future where it doesn't play out the exact same way
43:43
Speaker 1: is interesting, but I don't feel emotionally drawn to it.
43:46
Speaker 1: So yeah, I agree that is a little a little
43:49
Speaker 1: muddled in the end. And again I don't know that
43:52
Speaker 1: rebirth clarified my questions on it, but it does bring
43:58
Speaker 1: back the whispers in an interesting way. I don't think
44:00
Speaker 1: that's a mental spoiler, so I guess we can turn
44:03
Speaker 1: to that discussion when that story's done. But yeah, I'll
44:07
Speaker 1: withhold full judgment until I've played through the end of
44:10
Speaker 1: the story with revelation, which just got announced, because maybe
44:14
Speaker 1: they will deliver on that in a more interesting way. Yeah,
44:18
Speaker 1: and you know, I'm I'm okay with it because it
44:23
Speaker 1: gets us to an interesting place in the end, But
44:27
Speaker 1: I'm I don't know. I don't think it is necessarily
44:32
Speaker 1: great internal storytelling, just because they really do have to
44:36
Speaker 1: invent these out of nowhere. I don't know, and it's
44:39
Speaker 1: not clearly consistent to me exactly how it works. Like
44:45
Speaker 1: it seems like in the way that the Whispers interact here,
44:50
Speaker 1: sometimes they stop things from happening, where like, I'm not clear,
44:54
Speaker 1: it's not clear to me why they are diverging. Like
44:56
Speaker 1: for example, when Cloud's talking to Hojo, and you know,
45:00
Speaker 1: Hojo's he kind of remembers who Cloud is and he's
45:03
Speaker 1: about to tell him, so then the Whispers drag him away.
45:06
Speaker 1: It's like, why in this universe is suddenly Hojo going
45:09
Speaker 1: to tell Cloud who he is at this point? Like,
45:11
Speaker 1: what's causing that diversions that now they need to fix
45:14
Speaker 1: other than just pure randomness. I don't know. I don't know. Yeah,
45:18
Speaker 1: I don't remember that exact scene, but again it's been
45:20
Speaker 1: a few years. Yeah I do remember they like brought
45:23
Speaker 1: Barrett back to life. But yeah, my favorite take of
45:29
Speaker 1: the Whispers, which is not great from an internal storytelling thing,
45:32
Speaker 1: but my favorite take is that they knew that if
45:36
Speaker 1: they changed anything, the fans of the original would complain,
45:39
Speaker 1: So they were like, all right, we'll we're going to
45:41
Speaker 1: put you put an end game representative for your perspective
45:45
Speaker 1: in here, and it's in the form of the Whispers,
45:47
Speaker 1: where they're fighting against all of our topes to change things,
45:50
Speaker 1: and you will fight against the Whispers and decide what
45:55
Speaker 1: you actually want here. And then they split the universes, like,
45:57
Speaker 1: all right, you can have it both ways. We'll keep
45:59
Speaker 1: it saying, and we'll keep it different, and we'll see
46:01
Speaker 1: what happens. That's that to be is an amusing like
46:06
Speaker 1: the Fourth Wall take right, I mean, on that level
46:11
Speaker 1: of the g I feel like this is a good
46:15
Speaker 1: at least on a mechanical level, A good way to
46:18
Speaker 1: deliver an interesting experience. And that is exactly what I
46:21
Speaker 1: wanted in remake it in this whole series, a good
46:26
Speaker 1: way to give an interesting experience that is that pays
46:30
Speaker 1: homage to the original, but does something unique, does something fresh.
46:33
Speaker 1: It makes me feel like I'm doing a new experience
46:35
Speaker 1: in that I don't know exactly what's going to happen next,
46:38
Speaker 1: and so I feel like it was handled well all
46:42
Speaker 1: things considered, Even if I have some doubts about the
46:46
Speaker 1: storytelling itself mechanically delivers something that I enjoy, and I
46:50
Speaker 1: guess I can't ask for too much more than that
46:52
Speaker 1: in the video game, I suppose, So I guess one
46:55
Speaker 1: interesting question I could ask is, are there would you
46:58
Speaker 1: want the same treatment done to other games? Like would
47:02
Speaker 1: we want a Chrono Trigger remake that does this crazy
47:06
Speaker 1: expanded story thing, or would you rather just respect how
47:10
Speaker 1: it flowed the original and just do that again. I
47:13
Speaker 1: feel like it would have to be done with a
47:16
Speaker 1: story that's already kind of complicated and convoluted, like Final
47:20
Speaker 1: Phasy seven is the original. I feel like that provides
47:24
Speaker 1: a lot more room with dealing with some of that obscurity,
47:28
Speaker 1: some of that convoluted nature of the storytelling. There's more
47:31
Speaker 1: room to i don't know, deal with some of the
47:33
Speaker 1: eraser marks and to you know, sort of build out
47:36
Speaker 1: from there. Whereas Credit Trigger, as we talked about, is
47:38
Speaker 1: a pretty straightforward, simple game, which I don't say as
47:42
Speaker 1: an insult to the game, but it just is. And
47:44
Speaker 1: so I feel like to give it this sort of
47:47
Speaker 1: remake treatment would be to fundamentally change the nature of
47:49
Speaker 1: what the game is, not just in the narrative, but
47:52
Speaker 1: in the very form, so I don't feel like that
47:54
Speaker 1: would work so well. Now, if we're dealing with something
47:57
Speaker 1: like I don't know, Final Fantasy ten, that could be interesting.
48:03
Speaker 1: It would still have to be I don't know. They
48:06
Speaker 1: have to find some unique way to do it rather
48:07
Speaker 1: than just repeat the whispers. But I would be okay
48:10
Speaker 1: with that idea. Yeah, you froze again, though I heard
48:13
Speaker 1: your voice perfectly, so I don't know. Okay, good, then
48:15
Speaker 1: we'll keep a moving if we lose, come on you. Yeah,
48:18
Speaker 1: we're good. Yeah. It is fascinating to compare this as
48:21
Speaker 1: a remake to other remakes that I've played, because this
48:25
Speaker 1: is like the most comprehensive change of a remake I
48:27
Speaker 1: think I have ever played. But again, it's not a
48:31
Speaker 1: game you played, but one of my favorite games, Trails
48:33
Speaker 1: in the Sky. I got a remake a couple of
48:35
Speaker 1: years ago, and it's like beat for beat remake on
48:38
Speaker 1: the story, Like they do not change anything about the story,
48:41
Speaker 1: like ninety percent of the dialogue is the same. It's
48:44
Speaker 1: just like it's gone from two D graphics to three
48:46
Speaker 1: D and it looks beautiful, but it is the same
48:48
Speaker 1: game and it after playing remake It almost surprised me
48:51
Speaker 1: you can make a remake that loyal, because I felt
48:54
Speaker 1: like I think a lot of companies says Square clearly
48:57
Speaker 1: at least had some sense of this when they made this.
49:00
Speaker 1: Think that if a game was like sufficiently graphically primitive,
49:03
Speaker 1: if you're going to bring it up to modern kind
49:05
Speaker 1: of realistic looking graphic standards, then you can't just do
49:07
Speaker 1: the same thing again. You have to like make it
49:10
Speaker 1: feel like more realistic across the board, which in some
49:15
Speaker 1: cases means you to them, you flesh out all of
49:18
Speaker 1: the cut scenes and stuff and change the combat and
49:20
Speaker 1: all that. And I think there are remikes that have
49:23
Speaker 1: proven that is not totally correct. And of course I
49:28
Speaker 1: guess the other side is the other kind of remake
49:30
Speaker 1: that Square makes a lot of recently, which is HD
49:31
Speaker 1: two D remakes, where they're clearly trying to make it
49:34
Speaker 1: look like an old eight or sixteen bit game, just nicer,
49:39
Speaker 1: but like within like a everybody's tiny kind of framework
49:43
Speaker 1: where you can have basically the same gameplay and they
49:45
Speaker 1: don't think it would better than I. So it would
49:49
Speaker 1: be interesting to see an alternate universe where where they
49:54
Speaker 1: did take the original Phonatasy seven and kept the gameplay
49:56
Speaker 1: basically identical, but made the graphics much better and maybe
50:00
Speaker 1: moved into camera down to where you're behind the character
50:03
Speaker 1: instead of above them, and just see if it would
50:05
Speaker 1: have worked, because I do think it could have, and
50:09
Speaker 1: that's clearly what a lot of people wanted, particularly the
50:12
Speaker 1: people who don't like remake, would have been like, just
50:15
Speaker 1: keep it, thus saying why are you changing things? So
50:18
Speaker 1: that is, to me just an interesting area of game design.
50:21
Speaker 1: I don't know that I naturally consider either approach better
50:24
Speaker 1: or worse. I'm open minded. If they do a good
50:26
Speaker 1: job at whatever they do, then I'm on board. But this,
50:31
Speaker 1: thankfully is a case where I think they did do
50:33
Speaker 1: a good job, even though they're reinventing so much. And
50:37
Speaker 1: I would say that as much as I like the original,
50:42
Speaker 1: I think there are points where the writing is not great,
50:46
Speaker 1: whereas it doesn't have like a I don't know, cinematic
50:49
Speaker 1: fre flowing field to the point where I don't know
50:51
Speaker 1: that it could be voice acted in a one to
50:53
Speaker 1: one and work out well that you know, the writing
50:59
Speaker 1: of the remake is like cinematic writing versus what you
51:04
Speaker 1: can get away with in dialogue boxes, and so I
51:08
Speaker 1: don't know, I'm not entirely convinced you can get a
51:10
Speaker 1: real one to one remake now. As far as telling
51:13
Speaker 1: the same story, yeah, I think that would be interesting,
51:15
Speaker 1: and obviously I would play that game. But yeah, I
51:20
Speaker 1: feel like a lot of the freshening up of just
51:23
Speaker 1: the text itself, I feel like, just I don't know,
51:24
Speaker 1: I feel like that's that's needed to get to a
51:26
Speaker 1: modern voice active game, But I don't know, maybe maybe not. Yeah,
51:33
Speaker 1: And there were a lot of decisions they had to
51:35
Speaker 1: make in upgrading the characters to feel more modern, which, again,
51:41
Speaker 1: like we said earlier, I think they did the characters
51:43
Speaker 1: here mostly pretty well justice, but I'll be interested to
51:46
Speaker 1: like revisit that specific conversation after you've seen Advent Children,
51:52
Speaker 1: because you haven't watched that yet, right, correct, Yeah, because
51:55
Speaker 1: I do not like how a lot of the characters
51:58
Speaker 1: were realified or realized in an advant Children. Particularly, I
52:05
Speaker 1: hated what Barrett looked like in advt Children. He just
52:07
Speaker 1: does not look right to me. And I don't like
52:09
Speaker 1: how the characters are acted and voice any of them.
52:12
Speaker 1: I have negativeeels start to Advent Children. So because of
52:14
Speaker 1: advant Children, I had some trepidation coming to this that
52:17
Speaker 1: I would not like how they handle the characters, But
52:18
Speaker 1: here I think they did a much much much better job,
52:22
Speaker 1: like massively better, Like how I told you I didn't
52:25
Speaker 1: like how Barrett was handled and advite children, Like here
52:27
Speaker 1: he's like just perfect, Like this is everything I want
52:29
Speaker 1: Barrett to be, and like every other character too. So yeah,
52:35
Speaker 1: just whoever made the decisions on how to do that
52:37
Speaker 1: on this game, I think just did a much better job.
52:39
Speaker 1: And that's something you have to get right when you're
52:43
Speaker 1: doing a modernization of a game that is so beloved.
52:48
Speaker 1: So I'm glad they pulled that off here. Yeah. Yeah,
52:52
Speaker 1: it's a definitely a great accomplishment that, you know, I
52:55
Speaker 1: feel like, guys, I'm playing this game, that I care
52:57
Speaker 1: about these characters and that I care about them as
52:59
Speaker 1: the characters from the original, and so I think they'd
53:02
Speaker 1: really handled that quite well. Now. I definitely am going
53:07
Speaker 1: to need some time before I finished Rebirth, before next time,
53:10
Speaker 1: because because you're doing all the side I'm doing all
53:13
Speaker 1: the side quests, you know, I just posted that. You know,
53:15
Speaker 1: if I'm going to finish this game, I need to
53:17
Speaker 1: go to the story, and I still find myself doing
53:20
Speaker 1: literally everything. So that's just what's going to happen? So
53:25
Speaker 1: next time we could talk Advent Children, and have you
53:28
Speaker 1: played any other things like Crisis Core or anything. Unfortunately, no,
53:32
Speaker 1: they did a re release of not Crisis Core, but
53:36
Speaker 1: one of the other ones. It used the name Reunion,
53:38
Speaker 1: but I can't remember what the main name is. I'm
53:41
Speaker 1: supposed to remember the name. But anyway, there was a
53:43
Speaker 1: re release of another game that I clearly have not
53:45
Speaker 1: spent much time with because I don't remember it very well.
53:47
Speaker 1: But I've only played like a few minutes of it,
53:49
Speaker 1: so no, I don't have much experience in the rest
53:51
Speaker 1: of the stuff. I think it was Crisis Core Reunion, right, Actually, yeah,
53:55
Speaker 1: I think it was Crisis Core. There are so many
53:57
Speaker 1: fun Fantasy seven spinoffs that I confused. But yeah, maybe
54:01
Speaker 1: one day I will play that, but I feel like
54:04
Speaker 1: that I will have time for our conversation dis the point.
54:06
Speaker 1: So next time, I guess, well, let's stick it to
54:08
Speaker 1: Advent Children talk about that. Give me some time before
54:11
Speaker 1: the next one for to finish up Rebirth. But yeah,
54:15
Speaker 1: so overall, I like this game. I'm a fan. I'm
54:18
Speaker 1: enjoying Rebirth, and I look forward to seeing where things
54:21
Speaker 1: go from here. It's kind of exciting. They just talked
54:23
Speaker 1: about Revelation, the third one that's going to be coming out,
54:26
Speaker 1: and so I know it'll feel disappointing when I finished
54:29
Speaker 1: Rebirth and I have to wait a little bit, but
54:30
Speaker 1: at least I waited this long to narrow that gap
54:32
Speaker 1: a little bit. Oh, if you ever want to talk
54:34
Speaker 1: about other JPGs, I got lots, but I'm sure I
54:38
Speaker 1: have to be ready for another one hundred hours of
54:40
Speaker 1: trying not to do side quests for a lot of
54:42
Speaker 1: the games in that drab in due time. I man,
54:45
Speaker 1: I really need to finish my book at some point,
54:46
Speaker 1: but I'll get there. Yeah, that's probably more important. Probably
54:51
Speaker 1: all right, Well, appreciate it, and uh, I'll see you
54:54
Speaker 1: next time for Advent Children