Archive for April, 2020

On the Final Fantasy 7 Remake (Addendum)…

Posted in Grumblings on April 12, 2020 by chemiclord

(Disclosure: I have not personally played this title ((yet?)).  But I have watched it played by several others who had advance copies, so I am comfortable enough commenting on the narrative.

And while I by nature try to avoid massive spoilers, there’s going to be no avoiding some mild ones, due to their importance to the story as a whole, and the critique that follows.  So, as always, proceed only if you’re willing to accept that choice.)

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So, as we begin to dive in, what’s important to acknowledge is that regardless of medium, 1:1 faithful adaptations are rare, nor did Square Enix at any point pretend this was going to be either.

That said, if you are going to significantly alter a classic story (and no matter what some fans might tell themselves, Tetsuya Nomura and his team have already significantly altered it, and even threw down the gauntlet in game that they intend to significantly alter it further), you better know what you’re doing and why.  Because if you don’t stick the landing, you’re going to have a swarm of outraged former fans that are ready to burn down your studio.

And I wish I could say that was hyperbole.

The “why” in this case isn’t hard to suss out, because Nomura isn’t half as clever as he thinks he is.  The wraiths of fate are representative of old fans, who demand the story proceed in very specific ways, and get increasingly aggressive as the remake pushes forward; whereas Nomura sees himself as a visionary trying to get said fans to accept that things can (and should) change.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with “meta” story-telling and high concept narratives winding through an otherwise played-straight story.  Hell, my most notable series is built on the characters are self-aware MMO characters that don’t realize they’re part of a game, and I’m pretty proud of that work.  I think I did pretty damn well with it.

There’s also no inherent sin in challenging the audience, even doing so directly.  Let’s be honest, the overwhelming majority of fans… aren’t very good at storytelling or even comprehending a story.  Any given fanbase will often have mutually exclusive desires and be very unwelcoming of change, even if its needed.

But if you’re going to take on your fans, and have them appreciate you for it at the end… it takes some very clever storytelling and a very deft mind for getting to the heart of what the narrative is supposed to be about and convincing them that you can give them a satisfactory experience.

A remake of Final Fantasy 7 could have been a lay-up; fairly easy money for Square-Enix.  Nomura and his team are going for the 360-tomahawk dunk.  If they pull it off, the fans will be out of their seats in awe.  If they don’t, it’s gonna be on blooper reels and mocked for the rest of their lives.

Good luck, guys.  You’re gonna need it.

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On Remaking Final Fantasy 7…

Posted in Grumblings with tags , , on April 10, 2020 by chemiclord

In 1997, I bought an original first generation Playstation in order to play Final Fantasy 7 specifically.  That was not a throwaway expenditure for a freshman college student.  I had been enthralled with the series since the time it used an entirely different numbering system for the North American releases.

I even played Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest and for the most part enjoyed it.  I have a fanfiction in which I create an entire unique Final Fantasy world.  So yeah… I was (and to a degree still am) a fan of the series, and was ready to bend over backwards to acquire at the time it’s latest entry, intrigued by the promise and potential that it had.

I was not disappointed.  It remains, to this day, one of my favorite games, and I respect how it had no small part in the legitimizing of video games (and of RPGs especially) as a story-telling medium.

So, surely, I should be ready to do the same on the day that the highly-anticipated remake of that all time classic releases to the general public, right?

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Eh… not exactly.  There is a very strong chance I won’t get it (or its future episodes) at all, even when the exclusivity deal drops and the PC version is released.

And no, it’s not because I’m some “classic gamer” irate that it’s being chopped up into parts, or that Square-Enix dares to change it.  I’m actually glad that they are remaking it rather than take what would have been the easy money of just remastering the original title.

There’s plenty about the original game that has not particularly aged well, which I am glad to see Square-Enix seems to understand.  It sounds like the updated Wall Market and Honeybee Inn were a successful alteration that needed to be made for the game to not be rather offensive to today’s audience, to put it mildly.  It gives me confidence that other parts of the game will get a suitable repainting job as well.

No, the long and short of it is that I simply do not trust today’s Square-Enix business side of things, and there’s little that they’ve done to assuage me on that score.  The lack of any sort of roadmap as to just how many parts this game will be in, or whether it will have Playstation 4 support through it all is not very confidence boosting.

I’m especially wary because it shouldn’t be hard to have a roadmap in place.  We’re dealing with an already existing framework.  It’s not like this team is developing it whole cloth as they go.  That they don’t know just how many episodes this title is going to be parceled into is because they don’t want to know.  They want to ride this train as long as they can get away with over as many console generations as possible.

I have little desire to get locked into a Kingdom Hearts scenario, where meandering story-tellers waste over a decade rehashing a mess of a story and still haven’t resolved its most salient plot points because the series is such a damn money maker.  I have little interest waiting years as multiple directors repeatedly scrap everything a la Final Fantasy XV because it has to be an 8-million copy seller just to break even.

Come back to me when you’re willing to be straight with us about what you’re doing, Square-Enix.  Until then… I’ll save my money and my frustrations.

 

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