{"id":47624,"date":"2021-01-14T13:46:57","date_gmt":"2021-01-14T18:46:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=47624"},"modified":"2021-01-14T13:46:57","modified_gmt":"2021-01-14T18:46:57","slug":"an-observation-about-the-final-fantasy-vii-remake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=47624","title":{"rendered":"An observation about the Final Fantasy VII remake"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"border-image alignnone wp-image-47625\" src=\"http:\/\/totfc.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/aerith_remake.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"510\" height=\"255\" srcset=\"https:\/\/totfc.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/aerith_remake.jpg 1600w, https:\/\/totfc.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/aerith_remake-300x150.jpg 300w, https:\/\/totfc.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/aerith_remake-1024x512.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/totfc.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/aerith_remake-768x384.jpg 768w, https:\/\/totfc.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/aerith_remake-1536x768.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 510px) 100vw, 510px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve made any secret that I think that <em>Final Fantasy VII<\/em> is probably one of the most overrated games in the history of the industry.\u00a0 Personally, VI is still my favorite among all that I\u2019ve played, followed closely by IV.\u00a0 But all pale in comparison to <em>Final Fantasy Tactics<\/em>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Regardless, just because I thought it was overrated didn\u2019t mean that I didn\u2019t play it; of course I played it.\u00a0 Did all the stuff that all players back in 1997 did, breed chocobos so you could get a golden one, which was the only way to get the Knights of the Round materia which basically put the rest of the game on easy mode thereafter.\u00a0 I beat Emerald Weapon, but was never able to beat Ruby, but by then my interest had already waned and I didn\u2019t feel any real need to bother and try.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Needless to say, the game didn\u2019t really leave a long lasting impression on me personally, and I was always fascinated to why so many people thought this was the pinnacle of video games, and continued to do so for literal decades afterward.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">So imagine my general ambivalence-resentment at the nearly decade-long song and dance of a FFVII remake being developed and released, that ultimately dropped over the last year, to which I was disgusted to find out that even that was still just <em>a portion<\/em> of the game, which people basically had to pay a full price for a part of a game, and a remake at that.\u00a0 Obviously, I wasn\u2019t going to shit on everyone\u2019s parade who was ecstatic for more FFVII, but I was pretty irritated at the general low-ambition business model of remaking an old game instead of trying to develop and tell new stories.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Recently, I\u2019ve been getting video suggestions for FFVII remake videos on YouTube and because I\u2019m now a parent with low tolerance for searching and wanting to instead be presented, I\u2019ve watched several over the last few days, because I was seeing things and\/or characters that I didn\u2019t recognize from the original version, plus watching gameplay videos satiates any curiosity I might have about the way the game plays or looks without having to commit the money or the time investment into finding out personally.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Clearly, because the objective of the remake is to drag things out as long as possible so they can sell individual chapters of the game at full MSRPs over a window of time, the remake has definitely taken some liberties to flesh things out tremendously, and give a lot more spotlight to characters that were definitely more tertiary in the original than they are now.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">But in the process of fleshing things out more thoroughly, I\u2019ve noticed that the game has taken the time to really inject some more personality and character into the individual core characters as well, and 23 years of technological advancement has given the visuals the ability to interpret stuff like facial expression and body language to do all the talking that the dialogue might not have been able to do itself in 1997.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">To head straight to the point, one of the biggest comparisons in the original game was the SquareSoft equivalent of Ginger vs. Mary Ann: Tifa or Aerith?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Since I was very active in AOL chatrooms back in 1997, I was naturally spoiled to the fate of Aerith long before I even popped disc one into my PissOne.\u00a0 Plus I was also an adolescent young teenager at that time, so it was hard to not take note of Tifa\u2019s overpixelated bosom and microscopic skirt.\u00a0 It\u2019s not so much that I definitively chose Tifa over Aerith, I knew there was a longer timeline for Tifa, so I had this attitude of why bother with Aerith?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">But watching all these gameplay clips of Remake, and seeing the interactions between Cloud with Aerith and Tifa, if I had to go it all over again, or if this were the first time I were exposed to FFVII, there\u2019s no mistaking that I would\u2019ve definitely chosen Aerith.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Don\u2019t get me wrong, Tifa is still looking like a snack and I appreciate how tastefully she\u2019s been recreated to where she\u2019s not basically Square\u2019s Lara Croft anymore, and what I think is especially cool is that her attire has been changed deliberately to look remotely functional and logical, and isn\u2019t just gravity defying crop top and micro skirt.\u00a0 Details matter.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">However, when it comes down to it, because everyone is getting fleshed out more, and getting to have more personality and dialogue, Aerith has been given a galaxy\u2019s worth of new dialogue, personality, interactions and just character in general, which makes her the easy choice between her and Tifa.\u00a0 Originally, she was just kind of this bland, damsel-like innocent flower who everyone knew what was going to happen to her, and so nobody really wanted to invest too much emotion or connection to.\u00a0 For players like me, it was biding time until Aerith was no longer part of the party, so I didn\u2019t bother building up a relationship with her, nor did I level her up beyond what was necessary to not be able to advance the story.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">But now, Aerith isn\u2019t that much different from her core personality traits, but since she\u2019s been fleshed out so much, she\u2019s got a little sass, a little spunk, a world\u2019s worth more personality, and does a tremendous amount of speaking through subtle body language that she\u2019s allowed to do now that graphics have advanced to where she can now.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Needless to say, Aerith is the girl that I\u2019d pick now, even in spite of knowing that she isn\u2019t a character that hangs all the way through the game.\u00a0 She\u2019s been remade beautifully and with a lot more depth and personality, and although remade Tifa is no slouch either, she\u2019s just not as appealing to me as Aerith has become.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">The irony in this entire thought process is that, if FFVII didn\u2019t ever exist in 1997, and this was the world\u2019s first exposure to the entire story, I\u2019d probably go out on a limb and say this would be the entry in the series that could renew my general interest in the franchise. \u00a0But instead, it\u2019ll have the stink of being a remake on it, but damn can I admit that it sure is pretty, and well done.\u00a0 Too bad it literally took 23 years to make the game so complete\u2026 so far.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve made any secret that I think that Final Fantasy VII is probably one of the most overrated games in the history of the industry.\u00a0 Personally, VI is still my favorite among all that I\u2019ve played, followed closely by IV.\u00a0 But all pale in comparison to Final Fantasy Tactics.\u00a0 Regardless, just because &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=47624\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">An observation about the Final Fantasy VII remake<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[100,93,129,83,133,19],"class_list":["post-47624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brog","tag-comparison","tag-final-fantasy","tag-nostalgia","tag-observations","tag-old-man","tag-video-games"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47624"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47624\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47626,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47624\/revisions\/47626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}