Final Fantasy VII Remake: Review

My current time suck activity is the remake of Final Fantasy VII. The original was one of my favorite games as a kid, and like many in my generation I was ecstatic to hear it was getting a new version. Yet for some reason -- and I couldn't tell you what it was -- I held off getting it upon release. Even after I bought, I had to delay a few days because the disc was defective (I returned it and downloaded it from the online store instead). But now I'm finally waist-deep in the game (I just completed the battle at the Sector 7 pillar), and I'm very much enjoying it.

For those of you who don't know, the new game only covers a small fraction of the 1997 game -- the part that takes place in the giant metropolis of Midgar. This is only the first disc in the original, and it was a controversial decision when it was first announced -- is this just a cash grab to stretch out sequel after sequel? Or is it, as the creators insisted, a necessary step if Midgar was to be given its full color and splendor?

The answer, in my view, turns out to be some of both. There's no question that, as many others have noted, there's a decent amount of filler in the game in order to make it into a full-sized game. That being said, Midgar was always a location that screamed for more detail, and this game offers it. Now I want even more -- a complete open-world game set in Midgar, where I can visit every corner of every sector on the plate and in the slums.

Of course, that would be a different game than Final Fantasy VII, which is iconic as a relatively linear JRPG. So what do we make of the game we have?

• It is beautiful. That's one of the first things you notice -- it is just a visually stunning game.
• There's significantly more depth given to the main characters as characters. One thing I noticed in particular was that the age of the characters really seems more noticeable. Canonically, most of the story characters in the game are in their very early twenties. As an adolescent, that makes them adults, and one views them as basically confident, have-it-all-together heroes. Now, playing as a thirty-something, it's really obvious how they're basically kids. Cloud is awkward around women because he's 21 years old. Aerith is girlish and spritely because she's a girl.
• On the other hand, there are virtually no memorable side quests, tertiary characters, or events that occur outside the main storyline of the game. That's a shame, since JRPG's should shine on the story side. I think the overall weakness of the side quest game, in particular, is what yields complaints about the game being padded. But the fact is there's nothing in here that comes anywhere close to, say, the gut-punch that is Witcher III's "Black Pearl" side quest.
• The combat is a blast, and really seems to marry the best parts of a traditional turn-based system with the live action demanded by a modern game. It reminds me quite a bit of Final Fantasy XII (and it probably could have benefited from FFXII's "gambit" system).
• The one serious drawback of the combat is the inability to swap materia (magic) mid-fight. Particularly for difficult boss battles, a proper materia layout is crucial -- yet there's no way to know what it should be until you get into battle. The functional effect is that you start a fight, assess your enemies weaknesses, die, and then swap out your materia as appropriate on the reload. But there should be a better way. Let your characters use a charge to change their materia, or use assess when you can see enemies on the map but before you engage ... something.
• Voice acting settles a bunch of controversies -- for example, I'd been pronouncing "mako" wrong my whole life (I rhymed it with "may", but it actually rhymes with "mah"). The big choice, though, was "Aerith" over "Aeris". This makes sense on one level -- the fans who'd rebel if "Aerith" wasn't chosen are, I suspect, somewhat rowdier than the one's who'd rebel if "Aeris" wasn't picked -- but it still just sounds like everyone has a lisp when pronouncing her name.
• I don't know if Don Corneo was modeled expressly on Jeff Ross, but that's my backstory and I'm sticking to it.

Game Over

*Warning: Spoilers for the Game of Thrones finale*

So Game of Thrones is finally over. While I'm certainly in the majority camp that the series seriously stumbled down the stretch, all in all it still was a fun ride. And -- taking into account the corner that the writers had painted themselves into -- I actually think the series finale was a pretty decent episode. Yet quibbles are more fun than compliments, so here are my final scattered thoughts:

* I didn't mind the Daenerys heel turn at the end, though I agree it didn't have quite enough run-up. But the group that really suffered, character-wise, was the Unsullied. If we now view Dany as a fanatical would-be tyrant who casually murdered innocents, what do we make of her most loyal footsoldiers who unquestioningly carried out the slaughter? There's a story that could have been told here that carries an arc from their freedom from slavery to their status as a murderer's shock troops, but we never got it because the Unsullied -- even Grey Worm, outside his love for Missandei -- were never developed beyond mere arms of Daenerys.

* But at least there was a vague gesture at trying to resolve the Unsullied's thread: they were offered the Reach, and ended up sailing to Naath (to do what?). The Dothraki didn't even get that much. And to be honest -- they're a much bigger threat than unhappy Unsullied. Unsullied are at least disciplined -- they wouldn't move unless someone ordered them to. Indeed, once the Queen was killed, you could almost see how they froze up -- not executing Jon or Tyrion in the days(?) it took for the Lords of the Realm to gather at King's Landing, and scarcely thinking to contemplate the argument that they had claim to be rulers of King's Landing now. But the Dothraki are a mounted band of marauders whose default setting is to rampage over the countryside pillaging everything in sight, in a land where much of the security infrastructure has been decimated. They're a recipe for chaos.

* That said, the main Dothraki question is clearly "Where did these alive Dothraki come from?"

* I'm not entirely sure why Arya wants to get on a boat and sail west. But I'm sad that Yara didn't appear to be joining her (yes, yes, objectively she should be running the Iron Islands. I still can be sad).

* Bran as King is ... okay, I guess. I think the main thrust of the choice is that he's more of a figurehead who will leave the day to day management to his advisers. It's part of the slow "democratization" process (poor Sam -- your actual democratization process got laughed out of the room).

* If the North secedes, Dorne obviously would secede too. There wasn't really any way to build that into the show and not sap Sansa's speech of all its drama, but it's still true.

* Littlefinger may be dead, but someone successfully lived out his "Chaos is a Ladder" motto. From sellsword to Lord of Highgarden and Master of Coin -- well done Bronn! (Though what would have happened at the Unsullied taken the offer to be ceded the Reach -- which includes Highgarden?)

New Rule Roundup

Not eating lunch today was a mistake.

* * *

In the wake of the NHL barring Detroit Red Wings fans from throwing Octopuses onto the ice after goals, Down Goes Brown offers up some other new hockey rules.

Obviously this legal interpretation isn't going anywhere, but still amusing: Florida accidentally outlaws sex. Kind of like how Texas accidentally barred marriage.

TNC on how all Black people are scary Black people.

Interesting documentary on an Israeli doctor working to save the life of a Palestinian child in the midst of Cast Lead. Apparently it is getting rave reviews.

Hamas is willing to accept a Palestinian state on 1967 borders, but will never recognize Israel, because that would imply giving up the right to a Palestinian state ... beyond 1967 borders.

I do approve of Tolkien permanently transforming elves from midgets to lithe giants.

Deficit Thinking

Jon Chait slams the joint Judd Gregg (R-NH)/Kent Conrad (D-NE) proposed commission on reducing the deficit, which comes laden with a bunch of new supermajority requirements effectively guaranteeing its recommendations go nowhere:

To say that this procedure "is designed to get results" shows a very odd understanding of American political institutions. Conrad and Gregg seem to think that instituting major reforms in the public interest is rare because the threshold for passing legislation is too low. Thus they've designed a process that creates new and higher supermajority requirements, on an issue where getting even 51% to sign on is probably impossible. And if that fails, maybe they'll conclude the process was too easy. Next time they could also require the commission members to create a cold fusion reactor or retrieve a magical ring from inside a volcano.

My favorite part of the above quote, specifically, its example of retrieving a magical ring from the volcano, is that it casts the commissioners as members of the Nazgul.