• 16Jul 08

  I Just Finished Crisis Core...

  Okay. So, before I start this thread, I would like everyone to recognize that I adore Final Fantasy VII. ALSO: this is a long post - it might take some serious investment of time. Serious readers only.
  
  That being said, one of the things that made Final Fantasy VII so great was that it never pulled any punches. Each emotional twist and turn wrenched at the heart of the player. The obvious example is *SPOILER* Aeris *SPOILER END* This "hit" came not only as the emotional blow of losing one of Cloud's potential love interests, an integral part of the motley band of heroes, and the last remaining Ancient, but as a physical blow as well. Due to the leveling, only characters that actually participated in battle received Exp, AP and learned new Limit Breaks. Therefore, were you to spend a lot of time on Aeris in the first two discs, all of that work, experience, and limit break unlocking was gone. Done. For naught. Aeris's death is just one example of a way in which Final Fantasy VII got you invested in a character so deeply that you truly felt it when something bad happened to them.
  
  This is also one of the reasons players became so attached to Cloud. He was not a Superman character. He had no messiah-complex. In fact, his past history and mental state were so damaged that he assumed the identity of his dead friend, denied what makes him unique, and truly lost faith in his ability to save his friends, his family, or himself.
  
  Cloud's resurrection, physical (from wheelchair to defeating Sephiroth), mental (poignantly displayed in Tifa's final understanding of Cloud's true history through piecing his mind back together in the Mideel Lifestream), and spiritual (in finally harnessing not only his own personal power, but that of Aeris's strength and the Lifestream itself), is a cornerstone of what made FFVII so enjoyable an experience.
  
  Crisis Core. Oh, Crisis Core. Such high hopes for you, I had. You delivered on them in the most part. You had a working, if not entirely fair or sensible, battle setup, and the poignant relationships between Zack and Cloud and between Aeris and Zack...but you tripped at the finish line.
  
  By this, I don't mean specifically the End Game, although that also falls under the umbrella of "Tripping at the Finish Line." By "Tripping at the Finish Line," I mean this: Crisis Core was supposed to be dark. When I say dark, I mean BLACK. Bleak. Miserable. Hopeless.
  
  This is NOT to say the entire game should be this way. A game with no hope is not worth playing. There are hints that Zack knows where he's headed towards the end of the game, but hope is NECESSARY to make the player want to see the game through to the end. Even with Crisis Core, where the end is already known by the vast majority of players playing it, there's a little bit of hope that maybe it will be "all right" in the end. This is a sharply recognizable feeling, one we all deal with at some point in our lives: we all must face our own ends, and hope that things will be "all right."
  
  What I DO mean to say is that, in Zack's final chapter (in corporeal form, at least), life is very, very bleak. He's on the run from an enormous army of ShinRa soldiers. Cloud, his only companion, is on a mental bender and is completely useless, and possibly permanently damaged. He is far from home, unable to see his family, all of his former friends have turned on him, and he hasn't seen or heard from the girl he loves in 4 months. Add to all of this almost certain death. This is supposed to be a SAD story. This is supposed to be a BLACK moment. This is beyond discussion. Now, to the crux of my argument.
  
  In the final moments of Crisis Core, a barely-aware Cloud approaches the shattered, broken body of his friend and savior, Zack. Zack's body is perforated, steam slowly rising from numerous bullet holes in his armor, the hot lead being cooled by the first drops of a fast-coming, drenching rain. He is bleeding profusely. Cloud is distraught. He now has no one in the world to help him, and his only friend has just been brutally murdered by the company that employs both of them. Zack is unperturbed, though, stoically accepting his fate and passing the blade that has represented so much to him, Angeal his mentor, and his entire legacy, to Cloud, confident that he will do it honor.
  
  -CUE THE GIRLY JAPANESE POP MUSIC- Unnntzz Unntzz Uunntzzz! Bring the dance party! WHOOOO!!!
  
  Do you see what I'm getting at? I have no problem with Zack dying with a smile on his face. Sure, he's going to die, but he's confident his death has not been in vain. It is painful, but what isn't in life? He can rest easy knowing Cloud is okay. I ALSO have no problem with him appearing happy with what lies in front of him: the Lifestream is a joining of his very being to that of the Planet, and every being that has ever existed. He's going "home."
  
  What I DO have a problem with is the obscenely moronic direction of his death scene, and everything surrounding it. Girly Japanese Pop Music is not the correct score for a death scene. Neither is bright happy sunshine and an emotional feeling like I just finished a challenge in Kingdom Hearts. If you want a way to ruin a carefully, if not perfectly crafted mood, this should be a textbook case study.
  
  I will also take issue here with something that crops up in MANY earlier parts of the game: the DIALOGUE. "Grasp your dream!" God, this isn't Weight Watchers. The dialogue in this game makes all those self-help books you find in the bargain bins in Borders look innocent of hyperbole. I won't spend too long on the idiocy of Genesis's repeated recitations of Loveless, which is poorly written in the first place, but I think we all know the lines coming out of Zack's mouth have the tendency to be EXTRA-cheesy. Not the bit about his legacy. I understand this completely. However, I can only stand hearing "Protect your SOLDIER honor! Chase your DREAMS! " so many times before it starts to wear thin.
  
  To conclude: Zack's death is low point in the history of Final Fantasy VII. It is an emotional punch-to-the-sternum for Cloud. It is an event that requires dignity, honor and especially tact in depicting. It is finally a scene that demands emotional attachment, involvement, and most important, EMPATHY, from the player to function correctly. It seems, however, that Square-Enix was thinking about none of these things when it crafted Zack's final chapter. Instead, we get Girly-Japanese-Pop-Music that Squeenix was apparently VERY concerned about licensing, and everything that THAT entails.
  
  Shame on you Square-Enix. Shame on you. You took one of the most potentially powerful moments in one of the most successful gaming franchises ever created, and BOTCHED it horribly. I wish I could completely rewrite MUCH of the dialogue in this game, including ALL of Genesis's lines, a TON of Zack and Angeals, and I wish I could COMPLETELY rewrite the entirety of the last scene. The most frustrating part is that, for a few minutes, Square-Enix GETS IT RIGHT! They're on the right track in the beginning! The first two-three minutes of Zack's death scene are BEAUTIFUL! They are captivating! Indeed, they are the beginning of a masterpiece. Unfortunately, no one pays for half a ticket. The ending left a sour taste in my mouth, but not because Zack died. I left this game with a sour taste in my mouth because Square-Enix killed him with Girly-Japanese-Pop-Music.
  
  I hope some of you agree with me. If you don't, feel free to defend the presentation of Zack's death, and the dialogue throughout the game. I appreciate you taking the time to read this long argument, and hope it has made sense to you.
  • Posted Jul 16, 2008 1:10 pm PT
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• 28Apr 08

  I'm Not Dead, I Swear!

  Jesus, things have been busy here lately. I really do mean to finish the below blog post, because Part 2 is even more important than Part 1. Class has been kicking my teeth in, and at the moment my stomach is roiling and I'm working on 4 hours of sleep. That being said, I have purchased The Lion War for my new PSP, and am waiting for enough money to get Crisis Core. I've also been fiending hardcore for some Kingdom Hearts, so I might load up a new game of KH:2 on my PS2 Fatty. This, of course, all between when I am getting the massive amount of work sitting in my inbox out of the way.

  Alright. Back to work. Wish me luck!

  • Posted Apr 28, 2008 8:21 am PT
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• 31Mar 08

  Ingenious: A Perspective, Part I (Genesis)

  I am forced to start the first post in this series by referring to my past. As a child, my parents, being the clairvoyant individuals that they are (and no, I'm not being sarcastic,) saw that video game consoles, such as the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis (which released when I was about 10) and the next generation of consoles (PS1, N64, you get the idea) were an optimal way to waste time. Their consequent action was to deny me and my siblings, short of the old, clunky gray Gameboys (when "sturdy" in a handheld wasn't a bad thing,) the purchase of any kind of video game system.

  Granted, I made excellent use of my Gameboy, as did my brother. Everything from the original Tetris, to The Legend of Zelda: Links Awakening, to Pokemon went under my eyes and thumbs. I recall a particularly tearful episode when I lent my Gameboy to my sister, who was six years younger than I, and who accidentally erased all of my progress. You can imagine how guilty I feel nowadays for making her cry over something so trivial and stupid, but at the time this was the equivalent of a dirty-bomb going off in downtown Washington D.C.

  As a result, I barely experienced many video game highlights that gamers of my age are expected to have had. The only reason I played Goldeneye is because my friend owned a Nintendo 64 and invited me over all the time, so I eventually got to complete the campaign. Final Fantasy VII would never have entered my life if I had not chanced upon a different friend playing the opening hours at his house. I knew that I loved video games, and video gaming, from the first time I played Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time on my cousin's NES, but I didn't know how to get into it. I came up with a plan.

  Up until around my middle school years, my family had owned a Mac. Not as witty or snazzily snappy as they are today, Macs used to be woefully unequipped, and while "more functional" than the 386s in my elementary school that could barely run Oregon Trail, they didn't support many video games. I did manage, however, to build my obsession upon Star Wars: Rebel Assault (in retrospect, a truly awful rail shooter of insane difficulty) and Star Wars: Dark Forces (the game that convinced me that first person shooters were the end-all, be-all of video games.) But with the coming internet age, I foresaw the Mac being woefully behind the brand new, shiny Pentiums that everyone was getting, and proposed to my family that we break into the internet age as well, so as to help my "school work." Ah, school work. I doubt I'll ever again be as convincing as I was that day.

  So, within the year, my house held a brand new Pentium II. Granted, it was "officially" for my mother's use as an office computer, but I knew that this held the first opportunity for me to get the gaming that I wanted. Final Fantasy VII was released on 4 discs for the PC in an oddly shaped box, and before I knew it, I was reliving the thrilling moments of the first video game ever to completely enthrall me. Was it the insanely accurate and lifelike graphics? No. Was it the impressive combat system? No. Was it the immersive and complicated storyline with characters that drew you in like Demi3? Hell yes. This was the start of my love affair with games using unique, ingenious ways of making a game fun. It is also where I will leave you for now, while I prepare Part 2 of my treatise on what I believe makes a game not only playable, but impressive, addicting, even life-changing.

  • Posted Mar 31, 2008 8:58 am PT
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