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sibyl-of-space · 3 years

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Final Fantasy IX ~ Melodies and Memories

"Jesters of the Moon"

There are a lot of very good video games in the world, but it takes some luck and circumstance outside of a game's control for one to reach me at just the right time(s) and place(s) in my life that it has a tangible impact on who I am -- who I want to be. One that carves out a space for itself in my soul that will never be removed or replaced.

I've just finished playing Final Fantasy IX for the first time, and there's no doubt in my mind that such is the case here.

(Continued below readmore.)

I drew this art last year, when I was mourning my attachment to an old favorite game that I just don't feel the same way about anymore: Majora's Mask. I wanted to draw something that captured my feelings about it, because sometimes art is the best way to talk about something when the words don't want to come.

Why is "Jesters of the Moon," the name of a random song in the Final Fantasy IX soundtrack, plastered in the middle of this Majora's Mask fanart? Especially considering I hadn't even played Final Fantasy IX yet when I drew this?

The reason is exactly that "luck and circumstance" that allowed me to fall so uniquely in love with the game.

"Mt. Gulug"

In 2008, someone on YouTube uploaded a Majora's Mask parody-slash-let's-play series called "Majora's Mask: The Things Which Were Taken Out." The series has since become unlisted and won't be linked here out of respect for the creator who probably doesn't want things they said and made in 2008 being spread all over the internet, but because of Unregistered Hypercam 2 reasons, the series inserted other background music over the video and didn't record the actual game audio.

I didn't recognize any of the music, but I watched these parody videos on repeat because in addition to being funny (...at the time, in my mind, at least), I really really loved the music. It got to the point where I would sometimes be playing Majora's Mask and get disappointed when I approached Goht and the Mt. Gulug theme wasn't playing in the background.

I had forgotten about these videos for a really long time in the interim, but I remembered them at some point when I was thinking about Majora's Mask and I found them again. The creator had cited the Final Fantasy IX soundtrack for virtually all of the background music used in the videos, and I realized that despite knowing literally nothing about the game, I had become really fond of - and weirdly nostalgic for - the songs from it that I now recognized.

So I looked up "Jesters of the Moon" and played it on repeat while I drew out my feelings in colored marker. A few months later, I realized that my backwards compatible PS3 can also play PS1 games, and eBay had FFIX for PS1 at a good price. I had nothing to lose by ordering it and seeing what the source of all that fantastic music was like.

"Vamo Alla Flamenco"

I started my playthrough knowing nothing about what to expect from the game. I'd never played a Final Fantasy game before and my overall JRPG experience has been mostly limited to Tales of, Persona, and more recently, mainline Shin Megami Tensei. The only things I knew about Final Fantasy were a) the Tidus laughing scene, and b) Sephiroth. IX seemed like it had vibes I would enjoy, but beyond that I knew nothing about what the experience would be. So I approached it with a "let's have fun and see how it goes" attitude, naming my party members the first silly thing that came to mind, ending up with "Swaggy," "OwO," "Bitchin," "Gunz," and "SWOOORD" to start with.

(For the record I do not regret those names whatsoever.)

I was immediately struck by how differently the game uses music in comparison to all of my previous JRPG experiences. This was not a game where the composer was given a list of theme songs that were slapped on top of a mostly completed game-- this was a game constructed with the soundtrack in mind as a part of the writing process.

The opening act plays almost like an opera (side note, yes I know one of the other FF's has a literal opera, I haven't played that one): you traverse the same locations from different perspectives as different characters, introducing the cast with lighthearted humor and dramatic irony out the wazoo. While you traverse the city as OwO, OwO's theme is playing in the background, coloring your perspective of the city and the narrative. When you switch to Gunz patrolling around the castle, Gunz's theme accompanies your movement and informs his character and mission. I am so accustomed to "location themes" being the norm in virtually all video games that experiencing character and/or narrative themes as BGM instead while I bumble around town changed my entire perspective on what music in games can do and be.

The operatic feeling is definitely intentional, because the game uses a play-within-a-game narrative device to hit you over the head with its themes in a way that is somehow poignant and artful while also being extremely blatant. That is a hard balance to strike, but it manages. The whole game is like that: it is completely straightforward and tells you exactly what it's about at heart, but it does it beautifully.

At any rate, I was enamored with this intro and had a very fun time, but I wasn't obsessed or anything and ended up putting it down. I spent several months on the first half of disk 1 with weeks passing between play sessions. I liked the game plenty, but life stuff happened and I decided to get obsessed with Dai Gyakuten Saiban and Ghost Trick for a while. No regrettis.

It was already clear, though, that FFIX was going to be special to me. My compositions for my team's game in the Global Game Jam in 2021 were directly inspired by FFIX's opera-like intro. I wrote two character themes for our game that would serve as background music when you play as the two protagonists, coloring your journey differently even when moving in the same spaces. I was intentionally trying to mimic the way music is used in FFIX as an exercise. The themes I wrote are definitely some of my strongest work so far.

(You can check out the game here if you want, I promise it is significantly shorter than Final Fantasy IX.)

"Melodies of Life"

Music caused me to pick up FFIX the first time, and music caused me to return to it. After months of not touching or really thinking about it, just earlier this week I was inspired to play it again, because - again - I listened to the right song at the right time.

I was again mourning the loss of something, in this case a friendship, for reasons I'm not going to share here. I had already heard the song "Melodies of Life" because it came up when I was looking up FFIX songs to reblog on Tumblr a few months ago, and I decided to listen to it again. Even without knowing the game context, the song itself really spoke to me in that moment: "a voice from the past, joining yours and mine, adding up the layers of harmony" - it kind of made me feel at peace with the fact that I had a lot of positive memories of that friendship and I could keep those at heart while also moving on in the present. ...I'm also a sucker for music metaphors, so there is that.

I was really moved by this song, cheesy as it is, and I was also definitely in the mood for a distraction. Picking up FFIX again felt like the best move.

It was, and my life is forever changed.

The game never stopped being beautiful and funny and touching, and the soundtrack never ceased to amaze. I recognized concepts I've seen in other games but never had I seen them used so artfully. I adored the fantasy world and non-human cast, I found myself enticed by random encounter for the first time because it made me feel like I had to struggle to survive a difficult journey. Music, gameplay, visuals, and story felt like one cohesive work of art for the entire duration.

Life circumstances got me to play the game again, but the game itself was so captivating and wonderful that I binged the entire rest of it - disks 2-4 - in less than a week. Everything else that the game had to say, it told me itself, in its own context, and I was ready to listen.

"You're Not Alone!"

This is going to make me sound like an emotionally-stunted twenty-something, but it has been years since a work of media has got me to have a really good cry. I used to cry playing games all the time as a kid but recently I'll find myself getting emotional, sure, often tearing up, but getting completely red-faced and snot-nosed because I physically cannot contain the emotions being evoked by a work? Years. I can't honestly tell you the last time it happened with certainty.

I feel like an emotional band-aid has been ripped off. I was f*cking sobbing during the entire duration of the "You're Not Alone!" sequence. It didn't matter that what was happening was obviously coming from a mile away, because the delivery was so raw and emotional and human!!! A whole game's worth of Swaggy punching first and asking questions later to save his friends, being Protag McProtag endangering himself for others in any and all circumstances, for the payoff of all of his friends forcing him to stop being such a primadonna and let them help him for once. It's true, too! He relies on them just as much as they rely on him! And the game doesn't just tell you this, no, it lets you try to solo all these fights and waits until you realize how boned you are until they come bail you out.

When Bitchin showed up with her "looks like you need a hand" I wanted to straight up yell at my tv. YES I DO!!! YES I DO NEED YOU BITCHIN!!!!! THANK YOU!!!!!!! I half knew that SWOOORD was going to heal me before I got truly KO-ed but I had been unmercifully wiped in "unwinnable" battles before in this game, so I legit thought I might have to re-do that whole part of the game again, and I was so relieved and thankful when she showed up and healed me.

This moment exemplifies everything that I adore about this game. It doesn't just tell you its story. It shows it to you, it sings it to you, and it and lets you play it out and feel it for yourself.

"Game Over"

This song is all too familiar to me. Gizamaluke's Grotto was very unforgiving for a first-time Final Fantasy player, especially one who didn't happen to pick up Big on the way for a fourth party member early on.

I hadn't heard the piano part in a few months, though, because when I picked the game back up I started just mashing to reload before it got to that point any time we wiped. I didn't hear it again until the game was truly over, this time for good.

I let it play for a while. Not too long, because I have a CRT TV and didn't want "The End" to get burned in. But a while. Enough to meditate on what I'd just experienced, and how I was feeling about it.

There's so much more to say about the game, far more than I could put in a blog post. But I don't think I need to describe these thoughts in words. I can do what the game did, and use music, use art, use stories, use metaphors, and use symbols to communicate what I mean; and hope that someone else is able and willing to listen.

And although a written record of my thoughts likely won't be preserved for all that long, maybe the feelings and the memories will be, so long as they have been shared.

#personal #analyses #ffix

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chiislushie · 3 years

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What FFIX Means to Me

This may sound ridiculous to some... but every once in a while I will sit here and I’ll just think about Final Fantasy IX and the impact it had on me and how I view life. Ever since finishing it a while back, I’ve wanted to just get my thoughts out there about it. So, that’s all I’m really doing here. If you choose to read this, thank you! and I hope I can convince you to play the best Final Fantasy game ever made and maybe even have a similar experience to the one I did.

Being raised in a Christian family growing up, I never thought much about death or the afterlife. You’re always taught that there’s life after death when you die whether it be heaven or hell. However, when you start growing away from those religious views and suddenly come to the realization that hey, there’s probably nothing after death. The fear... the hopelessness that left me with started to feel crippling. Trying to wrap your head around just not existing is both terrifying and impossible to really understand.

Now this is probably something that most people deal with to some extent as they grow into adulthood and everyone finds their own way to deal with it. For me that ended up being Final Fantasy XI. Now I played IX when I was around 15 or 16 and made it almost all the way through but was under leveled and wasn’t able to finish the final level. So one day a few years ago I decided I was going to replay the entire thing. I got out an old CRT and hooked up my ps1 and began what ended up being one of the most life changing stories I think I’ll ever experience.

I’ve played my fair share of Final Fantasy games at this point, including most of IX. I’ve loved the series for almost as long as I can remember and of course the characters and story are always enjoyable and well written. Every game has it’s themes. VII starts as a story of fighting a mega company, Shinra, in a desperate attempt to save the live blood of the planet while then moving into more of a story about identity. The entirety of VI is a story of loss and moving on from it. Not only does the main story follow this, but the backstories of every character mirror it. However, I can’t say any of them truly had any kind of profound affect on me. Well, this time, IX is a story of coming to terms with death and the meaning of life.

Now just to start us off for those who have never played the game, here is the setup to our story. Immediately you start following Vivi, our little black mage. Not our main character but probably the most relatable to our theme of death going forward. Vivi has a ticket to see tonight’s showing of “I Want to be Your Canary” performed by the theatre trope Tantalus on their ship of the same name. Vivi is then disappointed when he finds out his ticket is a fake. After this a mysterious rat-like kid shows him to an area on the roofs where they can see the play. They are then found by guards, where the rat kid ditches Vivi and Vivi is chased, leading him to the stage on the back of the Tantalus. For now this is where we’ll leave Vivi and switch to our main character Zidane, who on the surface, is our pretty typical puckish rogue main character type. Zidane shows up with the crew of the Tantalus, in disguise as a theatre ship, with the true goal of kidnapping the princess of Alexandria, Garnet Til Alexandros. In the middle of the show, our main character Zidane sneaks into the castle and runs into a hooded figure wearing the classic FF white mage robes. The figure dashes past Zidane, down the stairs and out the castle. Zidane, realizing the figure is the princess he’s after then goes after her. The Queen then, realizing Garnet is gone, sends our next character after her. Steiner, Captain of the Knights of Pluto and final character of our opening. We then go into a three way chase which leads to the stage on the back of the Tantalus where the play is taking place. Here, Garnet asks Zidane to kidnap her and bring her to the city of Lindblum. He agrees. Now, this is where Vivi also shows up and with a large ball of fire, drives back the guards. Vivi then ends up roped into a battle with Zidane and Garnet against Steiner. The Tantalus tries to make an escape with Steiner, Vivi, Garnet and Zidane still battling on the back. A bomb is sent at the ship which goes off, damaging the Tantalus and causing it to crash in the forest.

After this our group is off! and our true story begins. Now I’m not here to spoil the entire game but rather just to talk about some key points. I will do my best not to spoil any main plot points, however, there will unavoidably be some small spoilers.

At one point early on, our group stumbles upon a village. Here they find these soulless dolls being packaged and shipped to an unknown location. It’s here that Vivi discovers that he looks exactly like these dolls. At this point he doesn’t understand what this means but it’s the beginning of where he starts to question his existence. What is he? Why do these dolls look like him? If these dolls were artificially created then was he too? It’s not until later when traveling to an unexplored continent he gets more answers, when they come across a village full of the dolls who have begun to think for themselves and escaped. These dolls tell Vivi that they were created as tools of war and they were created with a very limited life. Eventually, in an unknown amount of time, all of them will just stop. Vivi is visibly upset by this and dashes off. Throughout the rest of the game we have multiple conversations with Vivi about this where he mimics things that many of us can relate to. Vivi: “I don't think I really understand what it means to live or to die. Where do we come from...? Do we go back there when we die...? If that's what it means to live... I wonder where I came from... Where will I end up when I die...? Why am I shaking? What is it I'm feeling...?" Vivi: "I tried to stop worrying about things, but I just can't. I know you told me not to think too much, but..." Zidane: "That's because we're different, Vivi. You don't have to do everything my way, you know?" Vivi: "I want to stop... I don't wanna feel like this anymore. What if I keep feeling like this?"

Vivi is going through these same thoughts many of us go through. Wondering what happens to us when we’re gone and what the point of us being here is. These were all the thoughts and feelings that I had been having for years. Things that I never told anyone or talked about. Never have I felt this connected to a games themes, not on this personal of a level. So every scene after this, every conversation these characters had, felt incredibly personal.

Zidane: "Vivi... Well... in the end, it boils down to two simple choices. Either you do or you don't. You'd think with all the problems in this world, there'd be more than two answers. It's not fair... but that's the way things are. The choice is yours. I just wanna protect the people I'm with. Doesn't matter whether I can or not. It's what I believe in."

“You taught me that life doesn't last forever. That's why we have to help each other and live life to the fullest. Even if you say goodbye, you'll always be in our hearts. So, I know we're not alone anymore. Why I was born... How I wanted to live... Thanks for giving me time to think. To keep doing what you set your heart on...”

“That was the only thing you couldn't teach me. But we need to figure out the answer for ourselves “

What is most important to you? What do you hold dear? These are the things you live for. When faced with the end will you say you had a life worth living? These are all answers we have to find for ourselves. No one can answer them for you. For some it may be family, others may want to see the world. There are no wrong answers as long as in the end you felt like it was a life worth living.

I still can’t know what is after death but I can at least do everything in my power to be sure, in the end, I can answer to myself “That was a life well lived”. To find happiness in the smallest things and show love to the people I care about. Then take the bumps life throws you the best I can.

There is so much more to this game and so many other characters to love. So please! play it yourself... The memories from this game and the lessons it taught me are something I will always hold close to my heart. the ideals that I choose to live by are my own and won’t be the same for anybody else. They will probably change with time but I will always do my best to live up to them. So to end this... “Everyone... Thank you. Farewell. My memories will be part of the sky... “

#personal

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rentfreecat · 4 years

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Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts Fanfic Recs

so yeah I figured I should get around to making a list of some of my faves to promote them, I’ve got a big enough collection of bookmarks now. in no particular order. not all of them are necessarily complete or alive

Final Fantasy VII

The Gold Saucer’s Golden Arches by belderiver

Before he doomed the world to ash and ruin, Sephiroth wanted a burger.

note: Sephiroth + sudden hunger pang = mcgold

Meetings by Yinza

Aeris reflects on her few encounters with Sephiroth over the years since her escape from the lab.

note: Aerith having known Sephiroth before is just one of my favorite headcanons

lather, rinse, repeat by annperkinsface

She knows she shouldn't confuse this act of kindness for anything else, but it's hard, when Aerith is draping a towel over her shoulders, when Aerith is warm at her back, humming as she works a thick lather across her hands.

note: adorable Aerti. Aerith being a weirdo. Tifa blushing and being kinda horny. perfect. in case you couldn’t tell I ship it.

In Circles by Larissa

Tifa hates Midgar, and yet she stays, and she stays, and she stays.

Character study/pre-game gap-filler. Written for the Tifa Zine.

note: beautiful mood piece

the nodding golden tansy by Kieron_ODuibhir

“You think this troubles me?”

“Yes,” said Cloud, without looking up from his tea.

note: one of my fave takes on Seph and Cloud’s relationship. wonderfully quiet and melancholy.

not one before another by Kieron_ODuibhir

1) Sephiroth almost corrected the first person who called Aerith his sister, a woman they’d met before they were even out of Midgar’s slums complimenting him on taking such good care of her, while their mother shopped.

2) The other half of Project S took after their father.

3) Blue eyes contemplated him narrowly for several seconds, and then Genesis’ smirk came back, lying on his face more easily, somehow. “So brothers-in-arms to the skirmish shall we hence?”

4) It felt wrong to be relying on anybody but Mother, but Mother…only cared about Sephiroth, and it wasn’t fair. Loz sniffled. “Will she take care of Yazoo, too?”

5) “I’m glad he’ll have a big brother,” she said, as Sephiroth crossed the room. “Little ones always need someone looking out for them.”

Sephiroth nodded, and bent forward, and peered at the squashed little pink thing until it stirred, objecting probably to cool air on its face. “What’s his name?”

“Cloud."

(Five times in five worlds where Sephiroth was somebody's brother, and one where he wasn't anymore.)

note: exactly what it sounds like. personal fave is 4.

Angels Still Have Faces by Kieron_ODuibhir

On the fourth day, Sephiroth looked out a window and spotted his two friends together on one of the outdoor training fields, once again exchanging harsh words, only for Angeal to wheel around and storm off at the end.

note: fics where someone other than the main character time-travels are amazing and this is that and also outsider pov mother bear Sephiroth who doesn’t know what pizza is

Final Fantasy IX

puppet play by zalzaires

starting a drabble collection for ffix. i mostly just write about kuja so hence the name.

note: my personal fave is "curtains, bookends, stars of the show” because Kuja is such so... Kuja in there

Final Fantasy XV

ffucc the wedding by Givethemtriumphnow

Gift for Victortor, inspired by their fabulous ffucc Universe.

Noctis and Luna are the same person, one soul split into two bodies.

In a world where everyone lives and nothing hurts, the wedding is still a symbol of the peace, and the show must go on. Noct and Luna just can’t wait for what comes afterwards: the Big Reveal.

note: I just really like the one person two body trope okay? pretty entertaining read!

Poor Wayfaring Stranger by lithos_saeculum

Out on a mission, Cor Leonis finds a teenager, lost and sick and partway to becoming an MT. Against the advice of all and sundry, he brings him back to Insomnia. There's not a lot of love lost for MTs in the Citadel, but some of its inhabitants may still be young enough to put aside their prejudices.

note: also on my list of likes is MT Prompto trope, and honestly fuck canon that’s just there for inspiration. TW for implied pedophilia and stranger danger in one of the later chapters.

Will You Be There, Standing at the End of the War by Adel Mortescryche (Mortescryche)

When they're attacked by the Imperial Forces at Tenebrae, Regis wasn't prepared to be rescued alongside Noctis, Lunafreya and Ravus by the Commanding General of the enemy forces. Not after the man already cut Sylva down before them.

He was even less prepared for the face lying in wait behind the mask.

He dropped down to one knee, and rather pointedly cupped the left side of Drautos’ head, delicate, making no move to actually hide the fury raging through him.

“Talk, Titus.” Regis whispered. “Before I take this airship down from the sky.”

note: Drautos time-travels and is an absolute bastard. I like seeing his and Regis’s exchanges!

For Want of a Flan by magicgenetek

For want of some patience, Ifrit never freed Ardyn from Angelgard to rebel against the Astrals.

For want of Ardyn, Nifleheim never invented MT Troopers.

For want of MT Troopers, Lunafreya and Ravus were able to escape with Regis, and Nifleheim never cornered Lucis in their war.

For want of a kidnapping, Luna, Noctis and Prompto were able to work together to get ready for the prophecy, and Ravus is ready to suplex an Astral to make sure someone survives the prophecy.

For want of separation, the four of them go to Angelgard to figure out what secrets lay there, and accidentally adopt Ardyn into their plans to save the world.

For want of 2000 years’ prep time, Ardyn’s going to have to get up to speed on the modern world fast if he wants revenge or to fulfill his half of the prophecy.

note: has a good deal of worldbuilding and linguistics nerdery. I like that. I also like the recovery element of Ardyn’s arc.

A Little More Time by Asidian

The sun is brilliant overhead – set in a blue sky dotted with clouds that float like wisps of spun sugar through the high arc of the heavens.

It's more than lovely. It's entrancing, and Noctis takes one long, final look before he turns his gaze back earthward. His vision dances with sunspots for a moment, afterimages from the blinding light – but when it clears, Noctis sees a small black dog there, patient and watchful as always.

Umbra has been waiting.

"Alright," Noctis says. "We're ready to go back."

note: short, punchy, and absolutely chilling

Eschaton by nirejseki

Sure, it's the end of the world, but that just means someone's got to fix it.

And then the world found its somebodies.

(aka, with Noctis gone into the Crystal and no one sure when he'll be back, Ignis, Gladio, and Prompto end up saving the world one piece at a time)

note: I like worldbuilding and MTs alright? and schoolteacher Gladio will never not be funny/great

Astra Inclinant by thekindmagic

“Look,” Aranea laughs, shaking her head. “I’m not trying to shit on your destiny. But the way I see it? A lot of the time, there’s no big mystery. You either keep going, or you don’t.”

note: how could I not rec femslash? beautiful melancholy mood. I’m so sad for Luna

Starlight and Shadow by ohmyfae

While Noctis and his friends are setting up camp, Ardyn Izunia happens to accidentally stumble onto the runes of their haven. The magic of the haven pulls him into two halves; One is Ardyn, a small child with a bit of an ego and a limited knowledge of the world at large, and the other is the Scourge, shambling and groundless, determined to seek out its former host and consume the light it finds there.

note: fun read!

On the Care and Keeping of Prompto by ohmyfae

Congratulations! You have been chosen to ensure the well-being of PROMPTO, who is: 1. An absolute darling. 2. Of more intrinsic value than you, your significant other, your ancestors, and the world at large. 3. Two years and four months old 3a. This is very important to remember 4. Behind you.

note: also a very fun and fluffy read! also the fic that introduced me to the amazing crackship of Ardyn and Cor, and I say crackship but... I want more of it

Kingdom Hearts

The Price of Melodrama by LawnNinja

Xemnas never imagined that one of the hardest parts of his plan would be the stupid names.

note: deny it all you wish but you know this happened. also XULORD

(i don’t need you to) Worry for Me by Cygna_hime

In a fit of defiance and desperation, Vanitas disobeys his Master's orders and goes looking for the missing half of his heart. He finds it, and something else as well, something he never expected to find anywhere...

note: I absolutely love this I’ve read this like... 3 or 4 times? go read it now

Bleeding Heart by keelahselai

Xemnas was fundamentally a bad person. Born from the fracture of Xehanort's heart, he had only caused pain to those he banded together with under the promise of finding a way to return all their hearts. He shattered the Organization he'd founded for his own gain, and he understood this with cool indifference. But beneath everything, carefully kept folded away and hidden from Xigbar's prying eye, he was also made from the other inhabitant of Apprentice Xehanort's body. And as troubling as it could be to their plan, he kept it hidden from all.

(Or, how Terra managed to keep his head above the water for thirteen years)

note: I absolutely love the.. I don’t know what it’s called, but let’s say Terramas even though that sounds like a ship name... I absolutely love that trope. this one has such just a great mood y’know?

By Choice or Chance by Six_Piece_Chicken_McNobody

Lazy afternoons are a universal phenomenon.

note: I just love Xehaqus’s tragedy. this is nice, fluffy, and one of them is going to murder the other in his own selfish lust for power. (I know III said Xehanort had other motivations but I just love the “he’s such an utter bastard that all his relationships are going to end disastrously” interpretation)

Whatever Will Be by NanakiBH

Once I tell you the words I've been unable to say, it will be goodbye.

note: more explicitly melancholy mood than last one, still great.

#fanfic recs #final fantasy vii #final fantasy ix #final fantasy xv #kingdom hearts

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nyrator · 4 years

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another Christmas, another (surprise) Kresna visitttt

admittedly my mind has been blanking a lot lately and it’s a bit worrisome but I will do my best to document this visittt

so originally Kresna wasn’t going to visit and it was just going to be a lax/lonely Christmas for us

but then on Monday his boss suddenly gave him Christmas Eve off (swapped in place for a Saturday) and so he hurried home on his lunch break, packed his things, went back to work, and afterwards zoomed on over to the states again because he is insane and a good

He left on Christmas Day in the afternoon, but it was still a good 40 hours or so togetherrrr

The above were the gifts he got meee- The hat and Jenga were bought that day, the other two things were bought previously and wasn’t able to deliver them until now and so he says they didn’t count for Christmas but I disagree (still need to listen to that Radiohead album thoughhh), I tried drawing him something but may have failed because my art block is extreme, will still try to finish it thoughhh

So Christmas Eve, we go exploring the town to see what’s open- went and got donuts, went to the mall and he got me that hat pictured aboveee (the hardest decision was bobble versus no bobble), I wanted to get him an arcade pocket player with Dig Dug on it but he refused (it was a NES rom anyway and not the actual arcade version so it ended up being a wise decision)

While at the mall, he also had a sudden realization as we passed and explored a pop-up toy store- Jenga. A game close to Kresna that he wished to share with me.

That store only had knock-off and branded versions, so we passed and gave up on it. Later we went to dinner- our usual pizza place was closed, so we went to a diner (I tried bacon for the first time on a sandwich and it wasn’t that great, very smokey, beef is better to me apparently), and afterwards he sees the book store as we’re heading home, and so we serve into it, explore books, and then, in the manga section, we see it-

Jenga.

So, Jenga, right? Simple. Rules say you can only use one hand, you can tap loose blocks, yadda yadda yadda. Well, it doesn’t seem that strict with how you place the block afterwards, or whatever happens to blocks you intentionally move with another block, right?

So as you can see above, that’s the way Kresna has taught me to play. True to the spirit of the rules, we’re not doing sleazy tactics, but boy, do we play filthy

As he says: "It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail."

I’ve always described my want of a partner as someone who I can comfortably play Mario Party with, go absolutely cutthroat with, and still be able to be their partner, and Kresna is all that and more. We go hard, we go dirty, but we most importantly have fun, and it’s so good- speaking of, at the mall, may have discovered that my ring size is a size 8.

Otherwise- We played a nice chunk of Soulcalibur VI. I’ve been playing it a lot lately (50+ hours at the start, most of it character creation and like 15 in the Libra of Souls part), so Kresna decided to get in on the fun. As you can see, his character is the definition of the “chin down, eyes up, bad ass” variety. Rockin’ them sweet shades, often shirtless, all seductive beast.

And don’t let the scores fool you- he absolutely destroyed me in that game having barely played a SC game before, while I had 50 hours in the game, and how most of it just went to character making instead of getting good. Towards the end he started practicing fundamentals to try to understand the game better, and how to beat my character when I’m too fast/in his face stringing things together too much, and I ended up polling ahead, but mannn.

also shout outs to my SC character, will have to share them all soon

That night, we also watched Summer Wars (we were also going to watch a horror movie or Die Hard, but could not find them easilyy), both of us have seen it before but I absolutely defiled Kresna’s taste when we watched The Girl Who Leapt Through Time the other day and I stated I thought it was a better movie than Summer Wars (forgetting Kresna loves Summer Wars, to be fair I watched it back when it first aired on Cartoon Network and it was filled with commercial breaks and lack of interest so I didn’t really care for it at the time)

still decent/10 and I’m not sure which one I prefer at the moment but it was definitely a better watch this time than my first time

also we enjoy messing with Google voice commands on my phone a lot as you can see (he also enjoys stealing my phone and changing my wallpaper)

also bonus, current wallpaper of the year (and also new icon~) because I love Kuja (also while looking for the artist I discovered that Murase was a character designer for FFIX, a character designer for Gundam Wing, and a director for Genocidial Organ, all things Kresna and I have in common (as well as Ergo Proxy director, mannn, all feel so disjointed from each otherr)

#camera stuffs #text stuffs #kresnyan~

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khantipode · 5 years

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Frequently Asked Questions

Now that I’m getting Antipode back in gear, I figured it’s high time for an FAQ. This post will be where I handle frequently asked questions from this point on. I’ll make sure to link it in the sidebar as well. So, without further delay... Q: What is Antipode? Antipode is an ongoing Kingdom Hearts AU series that asks the ever common question: What would happen if Riku became the Keybearer as fate intended? How would such a cocky, arrogant, teen with his own inner demons fare as the hero of the worlds, and where would that put Sora? While it’s a tried and true what-if scenario, my goal with Antipode was to explore the gradual snowball effect of Sora and Riku’s choices while keeping them true to their canon personalities. Notably, Sora still ends up with Kairi’s heart, while Riku still opens the door to Destiny Islands and dooms his home. While Riku ends up with Donald and Goofy, at first he sees them as little more than a convenient means to see other worlds, while Sora ends up tricked by Maleficent and her cohorts into believing they are outcasts shunned by their worlds who merely wish to save the princesses and the worlds at large. And, as time goes on, the series moves further and further away from the original KH game plots into its own direction. If you want to know more, you can find the entire series here on AO3 or here on Fanfiction.net!

Q: When does this AU diverge from canon? That... is a good question. Technically speaking, there are two main divergence points. The first is during the downfall of Radiant Garden in order to explain why Xemnas is who he is in this AU. The second is at the start of Kingdom Hearts, where Sora reaches Riku on the island much earlier, thus Riku obtains the Keyblade before he can give into the darkness. Naturally, everything from that point on starts to diverge as well. :P Birth by Sleep is more or less the same as canon, though.

Q: What Disney worlds are included in the AU? Oh, lots! The first story features all the worlds from KH1 except for Deep Jungle and Monstro- in exchange, it includes Prankster’s Paradise- called Pleasure Island in the fic, in a much darker take that is faithful to Pinocchio, donkeys and all. As the series goes on, I move toward more and more unique Disney Worlds in addition to familiar locations. Fragmented Truths includes worlds based on The Jungle Book, Sword in the Stone, and The Great Mouse Detective in addition to returning worlds like Agrabah and Halloween Town. Monstro also makes its appearance here. The Year Between features Pocahontas, Monsters Inc., Gargoyles, and Mary Poppins, as well as many, many references to the Disney Afternoon shows and other Disney material. All That’s Left is the current story and includes worlds based on Robin Hood, The Emperor’s New Groove, Wreck-it Ralph, The Incredibles, Treasure Planet, and Frozen with a few other Disney worlds planned in smaller appearances. Olympus Coliseum also has an appearance here, as will Space Paranoids. In general, Antipode is a HUGE love letter to Disney. Even in familiar worlds, like Agrabah, I try to incorporate elements from the films that were cut from the KH games like the Sultan and Rajah. But other worlds like Arendelle will also see similar treatment. Hans, for example, will actually exist in the AU outside of a five second cameo. ;) Q: What about Final Fantasy characters? Other Square Enix properties? While the Restoration Committee and Twilight Town residents return from the original games alongside Cloud, I’ve also added some more Final Fantasy cameos from time to time. Quina, Freya, Steiner, and Beatrix from FFIX make appearances, alongside Cait Sith and Barret from FF7. But perhaps the most significant new Square character is Ringabel from Bravely Default. Though he first debuts in Side Stories (Love’s Vagrant and The Burden of Failure), he has since become a recurring character, along with Grandship serving as a sort of mobile Traverse Town. In the future, I’d like to maybe include characters from The World Ends With You and Chrono Trigger, but that’ll probably have to wait ‘til the next fic.

Q: If Riku’s the Keybearer, does that mean he has a Nobody? Is there a Sora Replica? Does Xion even exist? Since Sora still had Kairi’s heart, ultimately, he still ends up with a Nobody. However, this universe’s Roxas does not wield a Keyblade, initially still keeps the name Sora, and has a set of fake memories shared with Riku’s Replica. He, Riku Replica, and Namine form what I like to call the mirror trio. Riku Replica does later go by the name Xiruk, but that’s mostly so he can match Roxas and stick it to the Organization. As for Xion, she exists with drastically different origins, as she was created by DiZ rather than the Organization. You can learn more about her in The Year Between!

Q: What’s the deal with Kairi? Kairi, while starting off in a similar postion as canon, has a much larger role in this AU! Instead of staying behind, she joins Riku, Donald, and Goofy on their journey and becomes a competent fighter in her own right. A damsel she is not, so if you’re looking for a story that gives Kairi time to shine, you’ve come to the right place. :)

Q: How come Heartless Sora looks like Anti-Form? And why is Ven with him? The key difference with Sora’s Heartless form in this story is that Ansem had told him ahead of time what would happen if he released Kairi’s heart and urged him to embrace the darkness... purely out of curiosity for what would happen if someone so kind dove right in. Sora taking that plunge while clinging to his sense of self, coupled with Ven’s heart sticking with him allowed him to maintain a stronger Heartless form. In this form, he looks similar to Anti-Form but with a more expressive face and sharp teeth. Only those with connections to darkness can hear him speak.

Q: If Ven’s heart is with Sora, why does Roxas still look like him? Due to the shared connection between Sora and Ven, he still looks similar as a side effect.

Q: How come Zexion has so much authority? According to the Days Ultimania, Zexion was slated to be second in command until Axel killed him in Chain of Memories to cut a path to the top for Saix. This did not happen here, so Zexion has a lot more power and authority in the Organization. Saix is still near the top, though, as is Xigbar.

Q: How do you handle Chain of Memories? What about 358/2 Days? Kingdom Hearts II? Simply put, I don’t. While the first story is very close to the original Kingdom Hearts in structure, all the subsequent fics are more of their own stories, borrowing elements from the other games where appropriate. For example, Fragmented Truths takes the Riku Replica and Namine from Chain of Memories as well as elements of the memory plot, but it still features adventures across different worlds as well as the start of the Organization’s meddling in the worlds. The Year Between features elements of 358/2 Days and Coded as well as KH2′s prologue, but spun in a brand new way to suit the story. All That’s Left is thematically the KH2 of the story, but like the other sequels, it’s not a direct adaptation. After all, I’m pretty sure Kingdom Hearts 2 doesn’t have Aqua running around with the heroes. :P

Q: Does your AU include anything from Dream Drop Distance? Sort of. Ultimately, Antipode does acknowledge that Xehanort did want to gather thirteen Seekers of Darkness to battle seven Guardians of Light to do battle and form the χ-blade. However! Antipode’s Xemnas has zero interest in fulfilling this plan, and as a result, the only characters to have been implanted with seeds of Xehanort’s heart are Xigbar and Saix. Young Xehanort is lurking around, and I have plans for him eventually, but suffice it to say, the Xehanort plan introduced in KH3D has been significantly derailed. Thanks, Xemnas.

Q: Hey! How come Xemnas is [SPOILER]? Because Antipode started developing well before Kingdom Hearts 3D came out, and I had Xemnas’ whole schtick carefully planned out. I didn’t want to retcon the entire arc I had planned for him, so I stuck to my guns and decided to simply include an in-universe explanation for why he isn’t out trying to make more Xehanorts. You’ll just have to stay tuned for the full story on that detail. ;)

Q: Will you incorporate the new canon from Kingdom Hearts 3? What about the mobile game? There are many things in Kingdom Hearts 3 that I legit can’t incorporate. For example, the Guardian’s identity goes against some plans I’ve had in place for years, and my backstory with Isa and Lea differs. Keep in mind, this series has been going on since 2012, so I can’t be canon compliant with every new bit of information. I do have some... ideas involving certain reveals from KH-UX, though. We’ll see if I get to ‘em. Q: Will this AU have any ships? Antipode is a story much more focused on friendships and adventure than romance. That being said, there is some extremely slow burn Kairi/Riku and Riku Replica/Namine that’s been developing over the course of several stories. I realize these ain’t the most popular pairings, but I really want to stress that Antipode ain’t about the ships, so even if they aren’t to your liking, I hope that you’ll give these stories a chance! Sora remains extremely important to his friends as well, so no worries about the spiky-haired dork being left out. :) He may not be having a romance with Kairi in this fic, but their friendship remains ever strong. Addendum: ...I guess this is also the part where I admit that years of denial have finally made me crack. Ringabel and Aqua’s chemistry is just too good in this AU. Like the other ships, though, it ain’t a focal point. VenSo is kinda implied, too, if you squint. Both of these were purely by accident.

Q: What’s with the rewrites? To make a long story short, a lot of the earlier works in Antipode were... fairly rushed. While I had a beta or two, I didn’t have a super thorough editor to point out all the plot inconsistencies and issues like I do now. Because my editor pointed out all these faults with the fics, I saw fit to go back and fix them for the sake of my own satisfaction and out of a desire to make the series overall stronger. I have provided changelogs for those who read as the stories originally released, which you can find here.

Q: When do you update? Whenever I have the time and inspiration. I do want to try to get updates out at a more regular basis- at least once a month, but we’ll see what the future holds. I do work a job, and I have my Undertale comic @invertedfate, but Antipode is my baby and I want to see it through to the end. Got another question? Please feel free to send an ask!

#kingdom hearts #kingdom hearts au #kh au #kh antipode #faq

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schraubd · 6 years

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David's Personal Top Ten Video Games

This is something I've been wanting to do for a long time. It is a personal list, reflecting the games that have stuck with me the most over the years. I'm not enough of a gamer to claim it is anything comprehensive, and it has a strong bias to the sorts of genres that I like. Nonetheless, I'd stack these games against any that have been made in my lifetime. Anyway, without further adieu ....

Honorable Mentions:

Portal 2: How can a game with virtually no “dialogue” (if that means conversations between two characters) have some of the best spoken lines in all video game history? I have both the original and a capella versions of the Turret Opera on my iTunes (yes, I have “Still Alive” as well).

Railroad Tycoon II: A brilliant simulator that makes you actually feel like a turn-of-the-century robber baron (by far, the game is most fun to play when set in the late 19th century). If every man goes through his “trains!” phase, this was mine. As in real life, I am not good at playing the stock market.

Horizon: Zero Dawn: Robot dinosaurs! Incredibly, Horizon: Zero Dawn takes a core concept that sounds like word association from an over-caffeinated twelve-year boy and makes an entirely serious game about it—and it works. It works so well, in fact, that I loved it despite the fact that the plot and entire world-building background centers around my single greatest phobia (no, not that—being alive for the extinction of humanity).

10. Sid Meier’s Gettysburg: I find it odd that very few games have sought to replicate Gettysburg’s spin on an RTS—focusing combat around regiments rather than individual units and prioritizing morale over raw numbers. But the thing I like best about Gettysburg—and sadly it’s mostly unique too—is in how it concentrates on controlling territory (and terrain). Many RTS games, for me, might as well have a blank screen over 80% of the map between my base and my opponent’s base. You build up your force, and then try to swarm your opponent before he or she swarms you. But in Gettysburg, the goal of missions is not “wipe out your opposition”. It’s to capture and hold a ridge, or dig in and hold an exposed farmhouse.

My only critiques are that I want this game to be bigger. I want it to encompass dozens of map spanning the entirety of the Civil War. I want to be able memorize even more obscure Union and Confederate generals and wonder if they really were “mediocre” or if that was just a game balance decision. The random battle generator is okay, but this game screams for user-created expansions which I’ve never been able to find.

9. Crimson Skies: A pulpy fun flight simulator taking place in an alternate history 1930s where America has fractured and Zeppelin travel rules the day. The game doesn’t hesitate to lean into its concept (phrases like “broad” and “floozy” abound), and it does a great job world-building in a relatively short period of time. Somehow, I could meet an enemy “ace” for the first time in the middle of a mission and yet still feel like we had a history of epic dogfights together of which this was only the latest. Meanwhile, each of the locations the game takes you to (Hawaii, the Pacific Northwest, Hollywood, the Rocky Mountains, and New York City) are a blast and a half.

A sequel, High Road to Revenge, was released on Xbox and leaned a little too hard into the arcade-y elements (power-ups, automatic evasive maneuvers with the press of a button, and so on). But the original PC game was just right—planes flew exactly like how someone who knows nothing about planes thinks planes fly, which is just perfect. You felt like an ace pilot because of your skill (even though behind the hood the game is really holding your hand). Piloting a gyrocopter through half-built New York City skyscrapers, or a prototype single-engine through the Hollywood "O", is great. Doing it to evade local security, then doing a loop and turning both guns on them -- well, that's the cat's meow.

8. Mass Effect (Trilogy and Andromeda): As far as I’m concerned, the definitive space opera (even muscling out Halo). Fabulous voice acting (listening to Martin Sheen play evil Jed Bartlett is one of the great joys of my life) and memorable plot lines pair with a morality system that at least inches away from “basically decent person or utter asshole.” The universe feels genuinely alive, like there’s an ecosystem and civilization that you’re very much apart, but also moves in your absence.

I can’t really separate out the core trilogy games from one another (each sequel seemed to simultaneously step slightly forward and back), which is not I think an uncommon position. What may be more uncommon is that I think Andromeda stands right in there with the core series. Yes, it was disappointing that it took us to a brand new galaxy and only gave us two new species (while eliminating many of the more backgrounded Milky Way aliens). But I was much more disappointed that there will be no DLC or sequels to continue the story and tie up loose ends.

7. N and N++: There can’t be any serious controversy that N is the greatest Flash game ever made. While Flash demands simplicity, N is not so much simple as it is elegant. It is the perfect balance of speed and control, thoughtfulness and twitch-trigger reflexes, serene relaxation and butt-clenching tension. Once you master the floaty physics and the unique enemy styles, you will truly feel like a ninja—stripped to its core essence and deprived of all the usual but unnecessary bells and whistles. A virtually unlimited supply of levels guarantees you endless gameplay.

And so it is unsurprising that N was one of the rare flash games that made a successful jump to a full true game (in the form of N++), one that has a strong claim on being the greatest platformer ever made. The developers were wise not to disturb the basic formula: run, jump, and slide around a level, dodge obstacles and traps that will kill you instantly, reach the exit. Repeat ad infinitum. But N++ adds just a splash of additional flavors and spices into the mix. A perfect trip-trance soundtrack that sets the mood perfectly (and may single-handedly stave off keyboard-smashing frustration). A few new enemy types that deepen the game without ruining its austere grace. And perhaps most importantly, it adds a bunch of extra, semi-secret challenges (which can be used to unlock still more levels) waiting for the very best-of-best players.

Of all the games on this list, I might be in absolute terms “best” at N++ (there are a non-trivial number of levels in the game where I have a top 100 or even top 10 score on the global leaderboards). And yet there is not the slightest chance that I will ever perfect this game, or even come close to it. Nor is there any chance I will become permanently sick of it. A simple concept, executed brilliantly. The perfect N++ level is also the perfect description of the game.

6. Final Fantasy IX: The question was never whether a Final Fantasy game would make this list, only which one. I’ve long had a soft-spot for FFIX, which I feel is often overlooked inside the series (in part because even on release it seemed players were already looking ahead to the Playstation 2). Yet it’s hard to find fault in Final Fantasy IX as an emblem of a straight-forward JRPG. It has a moving story, fun gameplay, beautiful music, loads of quests to do and places to explore, a fabulous supporting cast (Vivi might be my favorite Final Fantasy character ever written), and a lead character you don’t want to punch (*cough* Final Fantasy X).

Final Fantasy IX is often described as “nostalgic”, and despite the fact that it was only the second game in the series I had ever played, I got that feeling instantly. Try listening to the soundtrack for “Frontier Village Dali” without feeling a little melancholic. You don’t even have to have played. But I recommend that you do.

For the record, my ranking of Final Fantasy games that I’ve played goes: IX, VII, XII, XV, X, XIII.

5. Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood: One difficulty in judging games within a series is how to compare an earlier game which still had some rough edges but represented a quantum leap forward versus a later game which didn’t do anything super-novel but tweaked the formula to perfection. That, in a nutshell, is the difference between Assassin’s Creed II and Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood. Now, for me, this is an easy call for idiosyncratic reasons—I played AC:B before AC II, and so I experienced the former as both the perfected model and the quantum leap forward as compared to the original game. But I respect that for those who played the series in order, this is a harder call.

What should be easy for anyone is to agree that together, Assassin’s Creed II and Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood represented the AC series reaching its full potential. Ezio continues to be the best protagonist the series has seen to date. Renaissance Italy likewise is the ideal setting for both AC’s vertical and horizontal platforming elements and its shadowy-conspiracy/secret-history plotline. As a franchise, Assassin’s Creed really launched the parkour/open-world exploration genre, and Brotherhood was the first game where every single element of what that genre could be came together. Other more recent games have been tons of fun (Black Flag and Syndicate are I think highlights), but these two games are the reason this series is so iconic.

4. Might and Magic VI: The same problem posed by AC2 versus Brotherhood emerges with Might and Magic VI and VII—except here, I did play them in order. Like the previous entry, I do think that VII ultimately improves upon the formula set out in Might and Magic VI. It’s more versatile, has more replay value, a touch more balanced (and that’s not getting into ArcoMage) … all in all, probably a better technical game.

But Might and Magic VI is for me iconic—it may well be the first RPG I’ve ever truly loved (and given the way this list is stacked in that direction, that’s saying a lot). Virtually all the things that characterize what I love in games today, it had in at least skeletal form. Open world exploration? Check: It was the first game where I felt like I was a true pathfinder—meticulously crawling over every corner of the map to find each obscure bandit’s cave and goblin fortress. To this day I still have the lay of the land in Enroth basically memorized. Overly detailed worldbuilding text to read? Absolutely: my obsessive-streak came out in reading every single artifact description, conversational option, and quest backgrounder (it is canon that Enroth, and the entire planet it resides upon, was blown up in a magical explosion—a fact I’m still resentful towards 3DO for long after it disappeared into bankruptcy). Slight genre-bending? The splash of Sci-Fi onto the fantasy setting was delightful to discover for someone who had never played any of the prior entries in the series. And some of the music—well, the White Cap theme is a thing of beauty, and on my computer “Adagio in G Minor for Strings and Organ” is still listed as “Church Dungeon Music.”

3. Heroes of Might and Magic III: If comparing earlier, more revolutionary games against newer more polished ones presents a problem in the Assassin’s Creed and Might and Magic series, it presents no trouble at all in Heroes of Might & Magic. That’s because the third installation in the series both represented a huge jump forward from what came before and is unquestionably the best entry in the overall sequence.

Sure, some of the expansions are a bit goofy, but they still work—sharpshooters and enchanters are massively overpowered, but they’re generally used in missions that would otherwise be impossible. But the main campaign is fabulous—a surprisingly intricate and interwoven plot that bridges Might and Magic VI and VII compliments outstanding strategy gameplay. And that doesn’t even get into the acre of standalone maps provided, plus countless more available on the web thanks to a map editor so intuitive, even I can use it (I’m terrible with map editors).

As a result of all of this, Heroes III is maybe the only game on this list that can compete with N++ regarding infinite replayability. This is fortunate, because—given the fact that Heroes III was a full-budget release and was not supposed to be “simple”—it ages incredibly well. Even the graphics hold up (no need for that remastered remake—which doesn’t even include the expansions!).

2. Witcher III: As you may have noticed, this list has a strong bias towards RPGs. My preference is toward “Western” RPGs (which have a go-anywhere/do-anything exploration mentality) compared to “Japanese” RPGs (which are more linear and story-driven), but Witcher III does an incredible job of synthesizing the best of both. It has a huge open world to explore, one that feels alive and dynamic—but there is also an incredibly rich story filled with deep, well-written characters (of which Geralt—the player character—is but one).

Gameplay-wise, Witcher III really hits the perfect balance. I simultaneously felt like the biggest bad-ass in the room, but also like a single slip in concentration or bit of overconfidence and my corpse would unceremoniously end up at the bottom of whatever cave I was in. But Witcher III particularly stands out in how it subverts certain common RPG tropes. You are a hero, but you’re not particularly well-liked. You’re a powerful warrior, but you’re still ultimately treated as a pawn in larger political machinations. Your interventions do not always save the day, and sometimes don’t even make things better. If a mission starts with a villager worrying that their beloved has gone missing, nine times out of ten that person has been devoured by a monster well before you ever get there. While many games claim to place the hero in difficult moral dilemmas, Witcher III is a rare case of following through (some games might give you the choice to let a trio of witches eat a group of kids whom you recently played hide-and-seek with, but few make it so that might actually be the more moral of the options in front of you). There’s even a quest where you help a knight rescue a lady in distress from a curse, then lecture him that he’s not entitled to her romantic attention as a reward (talk about a timely intervention in the video game genre!). Over and over again, the game reinforces the message that being really powerful and doing “the right thing” isn’t enough to fix a fundamentally broken system.

Most impressive is the emotional impact that Witcher III dishes out. Sometimes this is a result of rich character development that pays off over the course of the entire game (as in “The Last Wish” quest). But sometimes it shows up in even relatively minor sidequests—the epilogue of the “Black Pearl” quest was one of the more brutal emotional gut-punches I’ve experienced in a video game. Ultimately, this was a game where one always felt like each character was a person—they were imperfect, they had their own interests, hopes, dreams, strengths and foibles, and while you were a little better with a sword and gifted with some preternatural abilities, you were still only one player in a much bigger narrative. As a result, Witcher III might well be, in my estimation, the perfect RPG.

Oh, and Gwent is ludicrously addictive. Let’s not forget that.

1. TIE Fighter: I don’t think this list has a particularly “modern” bias. Still, there’s something impressive about the number one game on this list also being the oldest by some measure. TIE Fighter originally came out in 1994, and the definitive Collector’s Edition was released in 1995. It is, to this day, one of the best games ever made. And that’s not a retrospective assessment. Star Wars: Tie Fighter holds up even played right now.

For starters, it is one of the few elements of the Star Wars universe to get the Empire right. I’m not saying that the Empire is the real protagonist of the series. I am saying that they wouldn’t view themselves as evil—as much as naming spacecraft “Executor” and “Death Star” might suggest otherwise. TIE Fighter is quite self-assured in presenting you as being a force for law and order in the galaxy, battling not just seditious rebels but pirates, smugglers, and other anarchic forces that threaten to tear civilized life apart.

Let’s start with something often overlooked in TIE Fighter: the music. It’s probably the only context that the phrase “kick-ass MIDI soundtrack” makes sense. But that’s not even the half of it. The iMuse system dynamically and seamlessly arranges the musical cues to reflect what’s going on around you in the mission—you can literally follow important mission updates (e.g., a wingman being shot down, or reinforcements arriving) simply by the way the melody shifts. I’m not sure I’ve ever encountered anything quite like it since. To this day, the number that accompanies an incoming enemy capital ship fills me with exhilarated dread.

Gameplay-wise, TIE Fighter is almost shockingly rich. The core mission requirements are challenging, but by no means out of reach. But embedded in each level are a series of secondary and secret bonus objectives. These unlock a parallel plot of the Emperor’s Secret Order—but always present a brutal risk/reward calculus. That’s not unrelated to the fact that you’re often flying, well, TIE fighters (not noted for their durability)—but the challenge extends well beyond physical peril. TIE Fighter actually gives you an “invincibility” option if you want it, and yet even with it on some of the later missions and bonus objectives will strain every piloting skill you’ve ever developed.

Most importantly, the secret objectives usually are more involved than “blow up everything in sight.” They reward initiative and exploration. Maybe your primary mission objective is to destroy a rebel space station. But just before it goes down, you spot an escape shuttle fleeing the station. Take it out? Maybe—but maybe the occupants are VIPs best taken alive. So you switch to ion cannons and disable it for capture. Yet that extra time you just spent has given the rebels enough breathing room to summon reinforcements—now an enemy cruiser is bearing down on you. Take out its missile launchers and clear path for bombers while praying that your own Star Destroyer will arrive soon to back you up. All on the fly. All while dogfighting starfighters, dodging mines, giving your wingmen orders … it’s insanely, beautifully chaotic.

Did I mention this is all happening in 1995? 90% of games released today don’t have that kind of depth or spontaneity. In terms of playability, replayability, and just plain fun, TIE Fighter stands alone, and unchallenged.

via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/2HbDTEl

#games #lists

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thesteadydietofeverything · 7 years

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Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age is a welcome update to an overlooked series highlight

I played Final Fantasy XII, a bit, when it originally came out in 2006. I wasn’t playing games much in general at the time - as a junior in high school, it was the start of several years that lasted probably up until I graduated college where my experiences playing video games were few and far between. Still, the impact the Final Fantasy series had on me just a few years prior, when I put a thoroughly unhealthy amount of time into playing VII-X, roughly between the ages of 9 and 13, meant that I at least felt the need to check this new game out, as I have with every new single-player entry in the series. At the time, my reaction to it was even less enthused than my more recent reactions to XIII and XV, both of which I played for around 20 hours, essentially enjoying myself for that time, but being put off enough by their flaws to abandon them well before completion of a full playthrough. I probably didn’t even get past the first five hours of this game before giving up on it to retire to my room and listen to Pavement records and read anarchist literature, or whatever it was I was doing at that age.

I don’t remember many specifics as to why I quit so early, but upon returning to it over ten years later with the newly released Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age for PS4, it’s not hard to imagine. This game is a thorough departure from what the series had been so far - battle is no longer a random JRPG-style menu clicking affair, but a more streamlined approach not too unlike MMOs of the time. Not only that, but the main way that battle is done is through the game’s innovative and weird Gambit system, which allows the player to essentially program characters to perform a number of actions in particular situations by assigning them simple if-then statements. When your gambits are set up correctly, the game practically - as a number of critics at the time complained - “plays itself.” Grinding through the overworld or a dungeon can sometimes literally be as simple as pointing your party leader in the right direction and letting your well-trained team take care of the rest. At the time, such a system must have felt like a removal of many of the things that made Final Fantasy what it was to me; looking at it now, I can’t help but admire the daring deviation in a series that, for whatever flaws it undoubtedly has, has proven itself to be consistently unafraid of twisting its formula in unique and bizarre ways.

My newfound appreciation for this overlooked series entry, however, is not just a result of time and distance. The Zodiac Age changes the way the game plays in a number of really quite significant ways. One of these changes is with its License Boards - the means by which the player spends earned experience to learn new abilities, use new weapons and armor, gain significant amounts of HP and helpful skills buffs, etc. Though I never played the original game enough to remember how these Boards originally looked, they’ve now been modified to lock each character into two “jobs” of the player’s choosing - one at the beginning of the game, and another a few hours into it. Again, my lack of experience with the original prevents me from true comparison, but considering how open-ended and overwhelming these job-based Boards can be, I’m happy to not have to deal with the truly open approach of the original.

A much more clear and obvious difference in this new addition is the inclusion of a dedicated fast forward button. Literally. At any point while not engaged in dialogue or the menu, the player can simply tap R1 to make the game play either twice or four times as fast as its normal speed. This seems like a bizarre option at first, one that I wasn’t particularly keen on utilizing in my first couple hours of gameplay: the characters move at a decidedly silly, Benny Hill-esque pace at these speeds, and when just getting acquainted with combat, actions happen at a rate too fast to properly comprehend. But I soon came to realize that for large sections of the game, double time feels like a perfectly natural pace to move in, considering the size of some of the maps in the game and the rather laborious pace of the normal speed. Some of the more labyrinthian sections of the game can take hours to fully explore - the final dungeon, for example, took me nearly five hours to get through at double speed, and while navigating my way through such a massive and rewarding space was possibly my favorite sequence of the game, I imagine that if it had taken me practically twice as long, it would have worn out its welcome long before I had finished it.

The Zodiac Age, of course, also sharpens and clarifies the graphics of the original in a pretty impressive way - it’s not that it doesn’t still essentially look like the PS2 game that it is so much that it accentuates the striking potential still being squeezed out of the aging console at the time of this game’s release, mere months before the launch of the PS3. Additionally, the entire gorgeous score has been re-recorded. Despite my initial misgivings about this game being the first FF I’m aware of to use a composer other than Nobuo Uematsu, Hitoshi Sakimoto wrote truly some of the most lovely and iconic video game music I’ve ever heard with this game, and to hear it expertly performed in high quality audio is something that never failed to propel me through the several dozen hours I spent with it.

Lastly, one of the more subtle, but very important additions of this new version is the inclusion of an autosave feature. Again, sometimes I’d go an hour or two in double time between save crystals, and it wasn’t unusual to occasionally die in that time: the game contains these enemies called “Elementals,” eerie floating orbs that look not unlike something out of the new season of Twin Peaks and can utterly devastate your party in the early hours of the game. With autosave, it was easy enough to simply start a couple minutes before I encountered said Elemental and do everything that I could to avoid it, but if I had been forced to go back an hour or more to the last save crystal, I likely would have set the controller down for good out of utter disgust for a game wasting my time like that in 2017.

All of this puts me in an interesting position, considering that the last review I wrote was for the Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy, in which I struggled to grasp the point of a remaster/remake deviating from its source in a way that fundamentally changes one’s experience of the game. There are a few obvious differences here. First of all, when it comes down to it, this is still technically the same game. The N. Sane Trilogy was a bizarre exercise in attempting to completely remake a game from the ground up in a new engine, while attempting to give it as much fidelity to the original as possible. In practice, though, lazy or insufficient design meant that the game just didn’t feel like the originals, despite its obvious visual similarities. The Zodiac Age, on the other hand, is a more traditional remaster, but with a whole lot more: the additions and modifications may change the game in significant and meaningful ways, but the core game is exactly as it always has been.

Probably even more importantly, these changes actually improve the game. Granted, my limited experience with the original means that any nostalgia or endearing feelings I have for it are mostly relegated to a general affinity for the series rather than specific memories of my first time playing it. This is as opposed to, say, Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back, which I unequivocally played the shit out of as a kid. Still, the changes seem to stick to objective improvements: the ability to control the speed of play and the autosave feature make this game immeasurably more accessible to modern players, including those who, like myself, don’t necessarily want to devote the 60-80 hours of gameplay the original demanded in order to experience what the game has to offer. I imagine that even adventurous devotees of the original will be thrilled at an old favorite being given such a graphical and aural overhaul, not to mention the new play styles offered by the modified License Boards.

But all of these tweaks and improvements would mean little if, at the core, there weren’t already a great game worth revisiting here, and as a fan of this series, it’s a uniquely satisfying feeling to discover that this 11-year-old game is, indeed, great. ��While not exactly exempt of typical JRPG bullshit, it’s the strange, fascinating, and (relatively) mature game one would want out of a collaboration between Hiroyuki Ito (director of my two other favorite games in the series, FFVI and FFIX) and Hiroshi Minagawa (director of two other classics of the genre whose complexity precluded my appreciation at the time they came out: Final Fantasy Tactics and Vagrant Story; maybe it’s about time I revisit those as well).

It’s worth noting at the mention of Minagawa that this game’s setting of Ivalice puts it in the same world as his other games. The story, for as indebted as it is to Star Wars (and, unless I’m projecting, Game of Thrones, which is at the least interesting to note, given the exceptional pop culture phenomena that series has become since the show debuted five years after the release of this game), is engaging in its political intrigue and subtle character dynamics, especially compared to the melodramatic bombast of most of its PS2 JRPG peers, including Final Fantasy X. While all of these games, toward the end, are going to boil down to needing to save the world from some megalomaniacal evil and mystical jargon about crystals, and this game is no different, it at least boasts some of the best characters that have graced the series. Of particular note is the relationship between Balthier - think a demonstrably more suave Han Solo - and his partner Fran, a Viera (yeah, the sexy rabbit ladies) who has a mysterious connection to the magical Mist of the world. It’s hardly an original pairing - this game, as most games of its genre do, utilizes reductive archetypes - but through a combination of solid writing and particularly strong voice acting for the time, it just works.

What also works, and works shockingly well, is the aforementioned Gambit system. Though conventional wisdom might suggest that reducing the actions needed to be taken by the player decreases the player’s engagement in the game, the opposite, as it turns out, seems to be be true in this case. In other Final Fantasy games, typical combat transports you to a different game screen where the player, more often than not, continually taps the action button to attack until all enemies are dead, a marginally fun exercise that can become mind-numbingly tedious upon repetition - and if there’s one thing you can expect in a game like this, it’s repetition. By keeping me on the map and allowing me to assign rote moves to characters to do themselves, the game actually kept me focus on the more fun aspects of these moments - the Diablo-esque satisfaction of filling out a map and collecting loot, the colorful character and enemy animations, and tweaking my Gambits to make sure that I really am doing all of this as efficiently as possible. Very few games make grinding as gratifying of an experience as Final Fantasy XII.

Of course, as abnormally gratifying as that grinding is, there’s still a lot of it, and even with the fast-forward feature, the game still takes quite a while to get through - my final time was right around 45 hours. This was with doing a good amount of the side content the game has to offer, including many of the optional monster hunts scattered throughout the world (while I declined to do several of the late-game hunts, I wholly admired this system, which drove me deeper into dungeons I had already explored, revealing whole levels that I never previously realized existed); still, I’d imagine a more straightforward playthrough would only shave that time off by a handful of hours.

Even I, under different circumstances, would have likely gotten bored with this if I hadn’t played it at the time that I did. This game happened to be released toward the beginning of the summer session at the school that I work at, where I’d typically work twelve-hour days throughout the week. As it turned out, after coming home exhausted and yet oddly wired every night, putting a couple hours into running around this vast JRPG world was exactly the kind of meditative release I needed to relax me before going to bed and doing it all over again. I can pretty definitively say this game helped me survive the most stressful time of my work year, and as a result, I’m all the more happy I never discovered this game’s idiosyncratic charms until now. Now I do have a well of good memories associated with a particular time and place wrapped up in this game, and I have a new top-tier favorite in a series I will never be able to help but love.

8.5/10

#Final Fantasy XII #Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age #Square Enix #JRPG #Video Games #Games #PS2 #PS4 #retro #review #criticism #pop culture

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extraquarterblog · 7 years

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The Entire Saga That Led To Final Fantasy VII Remake

Final Fantasy 7 - The PlayStation Masterpiece

Over the past few years, I've written a lot about video games, covering the latest releases, retro themes and every now & then I tackle a rumor. But if there's one thing I thought I would never write about, it would be Final Fantasy VII Remake. That was legit, no rumor break down, no trail to find the original source, ect. No, today - which I can hardly believe, I'm going to talk about a title that's been nothing more than a pipe dream for over 10 years now.

At the previous 2015 E3 showing, on June 15th, Sony unveiled a trailer that no one could hardly believe. After over a decade of various rumors, misleading tech demos and he said she said fiasco's, Final Fantasy VII Remake is real and it's happening. While like so many others, I was jumping out of my chair, then quickly went to YouTube to see everyone else reaction. My oh my were they golden. Parents cursing in front of children, grown men crying, people jumping back out of their chairs, even a few started break dancing.

Though, there was one thing I couldn't help but notice, you could read in the comments or even overhear on the various voice chats, other people asking "What is this about? What's Final Fantasy VII?, Can someone explain to me why people are going crazy?". Now for me, being an avid gamer, it all seemed clear as day, but for so many Gamers, old or new, the whole crazy for FF7 remake probably does appear foreign to them.

Honestly, I don't blame anyone for not understanding, since Square-Enix literally has so many Final Fantasy titles that they could remake into a full blown Next-Gen game, it does make some ask, why Final Fantasy VII? Hell, it also released almost 20 years ago. Not surprised many were asking questions.

Well, you came to the right place, I'm going to break it all down, without ever diving too deep in the rabbit hole that I lose you. I'll lay it all out, nice and plainly why Final Fantasy VII Remake is a Unicorn that turned out to be real, and has been teased for a very long time.

So what's so special about FF7?

Excellent question. Final Fantasy 7 is one of those few titles that captures a platform theme perfectly. Back in 1997 Final Fantasy 7 made its original debut on the PlayStation 1. Why is this significant to know? Simple - this was the first major FF title to ever release on a system outside Nintendo. This was pretty big news for Square-Soft at the time, made the decision to step away from Nintendo 64 platform and venture to the PlayStation, however it wasn't all by choice. Final Fantasy VII was considered a highly advance title that wouldn't be possible to run on the N64. The PlayStation 1 was the only system with the chops that would be able to run it.

Also, FF7 was hella expensive to develop. Sources claiming the title cost around $45 Million dollars to develop, which was pretty much unheard of back then. Even by today's standards $45 million is a lot of cash for a title. Final Fantasy 7 also had a lot of first for the Final Fantasy franchise, such as CGI cut-scenes, multiple disk, and characters making apperences in other titles besides the famous Cid.

Basically, Square-Soft released an incredibly expensive title, on a new system, using 3D graphics, that would pretty much make or break the company. And as we all know, Final Fantasy VII was a masterpiece, it sold bajjilions of copies, and really started to build a strong image with the PlayStation brand, that had FFVIII and FFIX follow after its release.

So why did everyone want a remake?

Ohhh, great, Great question there. While FF7 is considered a phenomenal title, people would argue titles like FF4 or FF6 would be a better title to go with, even FFIX has a strong following. So why is there such a large group of people riding on constant hopes and prayers for a FF7 remake? To sum up a loooong story, Square-Enix has kind of been teasing the idea about it for a very long time.

Of course, besides the fact that FF7 is such a moving and enjoyable game, Square-Enix has had a long history of branching off the FF7 franchise and constantly giving a possible hint, a FF7 title could happen.

The first time my ears ever heard of a new possible FFVII title was in the works goes way back to 2003. The first tidbit that ever appeared was from a game magazine, when people used to read them, featured in the rumor section, was a small snip-it in the article mentioning there's a possibility of seeing a lot more of FF7 in the coming months. Everyone had their own take what Square could be up to, but best I could remember, that was where the first mention to my knowledge of a remake of FF7 could be possible.

Now you have to remember, back then, there was no YouTube, IGN wasn't the behemoth it is today, and there wasn't Game expos going off every month. The best way you found any news or wanting to look up details on a rumor was from Neogaf or Gamefaqs. That was it. Also Square-Enix still had several odd practices when it came to releasing information, such as their famous closed door theaters when showing off footage. So unless you were literally in Japan, months could go by before you learn about anything state side.

Later that year the world would learn that Square-Enix was kicking off a new project dubbed the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII were three new Final Fantasy VII projects in the works. One was a new film, titled Advent Children, which not much was known besides the fact it would take place in the FF7 universe and showed a few shots, like Barrett flexing his arm, showing off his cannon. Most people speculated that this was Square-Enix attempt to redeem itself from the financial failure that was Final Fantasy: Spirit from Within.

The other title that everyone could wait to learn more was titled Before Crises. Very small details were given, and I'm talking small. I still have the first magazine that had coverage for it and all they had was a few sentences to cover it. Before Crises would be a prequel to FF7 that followed Turks and co, leading events up to that start of Final Fantasy VII. Now typically, any Square fan would be jumping for joy, however, there were a few catches that made most FF fans disappointed. Before Crises is a Cell Phone game only, and exclusive to Japan. So yeah, like having the door shut right in-front of you.

The final title would be Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, another title that took place before the events of Final Fantasy VII. Unlike Before Crises, Crisis Core took place closer in the time line, right before the starting events in FF7. Many fans considered this to be for the most part, Canon to the story, as you played a major character, Zack, one of Cloud's first companions. Though sadly would be released for the PSP and with a release date many Many years out.

However, this was kind of the spark that started to light the ever burning rumors of a FF7 remake. Which only continued to get more fuel when early in 2005 more rumors were abound as a fresh leaks claiming a new Final Fantasy 7 title was in the works and for the PS2.

With this new tidbit of info, almost made certain a new FF7 remake was going to be released for the PS2. Hype and attention steadily grew and who could blame anyone for hoping, Trailers for Advent Children started to appear, which looked gorgeous, making the FFVII universe getting hotter. This had to be it.

Sadly, it wasn't. Instead around mid 2005 we learned the new title would be Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII.

The next title, Dirge of Cerberus was star Vincent, a popular character from FF7, who was having his own title that took place several years after the events of FF7. Gamers once more were disappointed, as this was not the Final Fantasy VII title they were hoping for.

While Dirge of Cerberus had a few popular Dev names attached to the project, sadly the studio deviated from the original play style that Final Fantasy games are known for, the combat was heavily criticized and the story was considered weak when in comparison to the rest of the FF7 saga. So in the end, it wasn't the best selling piece of the FF7 world.

Though Square-Enix wasnt done with the Final Fantasy VII teases.

E3, 2005 when Sony was having its grand PS3 showing, debuting its muscle and lineup of titles. Square-Enix took the time to display a little tech demo they prepared to show the capabilities of the PS3 hardware. Square-Enix would then dump the biggest barrel of the most flammable substance on earth a top of the Final Fantasy 7 rumors. SE shows off the entire opening of Final Fantasy VII, remade on the PS3.

Fans, of course, were doing back-flips. Despite both Sony and SE stating it was nothing more than a tech demo and Square-Enix had several other Final Fantasy titles in the works such as, Final Fantasy XIII and XIII Versus. To no surprise, fans couldn't but help themselves, and a swarm of post declaring that a FF7 remake must surely be in development to follow afterwards.

" If Final Fantasy VII rumors were popping up, E3 most be coming."

The gears of time would slowly pass, as the years moved by, time and time again, rumors would appear and die out. It almost became a tradition, like a farmer checking the leaves of a tree. If he spotted leaves turning red, Fall most be coming. If Final Fantasy VII rumors were popping up, E3 most be coming. Almost every E3 for decades always had multiple rumors of FF7 in development, and time and time again, fans would take the bait only to be disappointed.

Now when your big as Square-Enix, you're going to have a lot of interviews and over the years questions about Final Fantasy VII remake being an option have been generally shot down. While Square-Enix has always been humble about how fans would love a FFVII, it hasn't stopped them from being outright honest. One of the most famous quotes about Final Fantasy VII came in 2010 from Yoshinori Kitase, a game producer at SE, when asked about FFVII remake, he replied:

"would take as much as three or four times longer than the three and a half years it has taken to put this Final Fantasy together! So it's looking pretty unrealistic to happen!" -- Yoshinori Kitase

So with that in-mind, it seemed pretty unlikely that Cloud and the crew would ever see the light of day again. However, the following years for Square-Enix have not been kind.

It's no secret to anyone, Square-Enix has had a bumpy relationship with its fans, The Final Fantasy XIII saga never really lived up to expectations and Final Fantasy XIV first released was the worst reviewed Final Fantasy game in Square history. Square promised to begin changing its course and building a better relationship with its fans, thus Square-Enix announced building a team that would overlook the quality of their games, ensuring their titles would live up to the standards the company was known for. Both the Press and loyal FF7 fans, once again speculated, could this be the straw that would break the camels back, with SE desperate to win back fans, what better then Final Fantasy VII Remake?

Fast forwarding to 2014, Sony is holding its first PlayStation event in December, that would be streamed live, to show off a suite of titles and features for the PlayStation 4. What better time to have an event to hype up a product during the holidays. As developers announced they would or would not be at the PlayStation Event, Square-Enix listed to be there, and had very special surprise. Of course, like the sun rising, rumors of FFVII would be there, but this time, its for realz.

And the rumors didn't lie, Shinji Hashimoto, a leading game producer from Square-Enix took to the stage to give a very special announcement. The PC version of Final Fantasy VII was coming to the PS4. The crowd and live streamers reactions were priceless, words can't describe that moment where you think, this could be possible, could FFVII be really happening aaaaand then you get this.

It was like pouring salt into the wound.

At this point, Final Fantasy VII rumors have been done to death, a pipe dream that fans felt would never come to fruition. For the first time in almost a decade, after the PlayStation Event, fans finally started to throw in the towel in believeth of a remake to ever happen.

Though, it would seem that not all hope was lost yet, as I said, if FF7 rumors were popping up, it must mean E3 was coming, and right on the money, it was. E3 2015, one of the most mind blowing events in Gaming history kicked off some major bombshells. And one of those mind busters, was when Adam Boyes on stage with green magic streaks of light glowing behind him, he began saying:

"Now many years ago, Square-Enix released a ground breaking title that went on to become one of the most beloved games in PlayStation and video game history. Tonight i'm proud to announce by popular demand, we have a very special treat for everyone" -- Adam Boyes

So how long as FFVII been in development?

The next big question after FFVII Remake made its grand appearance, was just how long Square-Enix has been involved with the project? While there hasn't been any hard facts to put a date on your calendar when Square-Enix started working on FF7: Remake. There has been a few clues painting a picture when staff could of begun working on the impossible project Square refused to do for so long.

Clue one, when Tetsuya Nomura was no longer directing Final Fantasy XV. Big news broke out last year when Nomura was announced to leave the directing position in mid-September. Square-Enix was quoted saying "This move allows Tetsuya Nomura to focus his full efforts as the director of other highly anticipated titles, including Kingdom Hearts III"

We now know that secretly Nomura was being moved into the Directing position for Final Fantasy VII. Now I doubt Nomura just stood up from his chair and Hajime Tabata, the new director for FFXV just came in and sat down. With all major gaming projects and one long as FFXV been in development, I'm sure there was a period that Hajime and Nomura were being slowly moved into their new roles. So If I had to take a bet, I would put money that Nomura started working on Final Fantasy 7 back in August or even early as July.

But there's another clue, that came from Tetsuya Nomura himself, during an interview, Nomura mentioned that he didn't even know he was going to be the director of Final Fantasy 7 until he was brought into a presentation, and found his name attached to the project as its director.

"So I called up Mr. Kitase and said, 'It says that I’m the director for some reason.' To which he replied, 'Of course it does" -- Tetsuya Nomura

Now, despite my best attempts, I can't find a date for when this event happened to Nomura, but it's clear that the Final Fantasy VII Remake project kicked off before they even had the director aware. So we know he left full time for FF7 back in September and that the project began before he knew, giving us at best, a ball park guess.

Taking a jab in the dark, I speculate that when the FF7 Remake project got the green light was around the first quarter in 2014. Getting funds, time, staff, shuffling around schedules, and resources takes time, more than you would think. So by the time it was all aligned for full development, would be around when Nomura is at the helm directing.

What comes next?

Naturally the next question on everyone's mind is the agenda Square-Enix has in stored for Final Fantasy VII Remake. Of course, no release date was given, but that hasn't stopped the speculation. Recently eagle eye viewers caught on a PlayStation 4 ad flyer had FFVII Remake listed for "2016 TBA". While I would love to believe Final Fantasy VII Remake releasing next year, my gut tells me that's unlikely.

I could list off a few good key reasons, but I'm going to cut straight to my strongest card, Final Fantasy VII 20th anniversary is 2017. What better time to release one of the most wanted remakes in history. Also, when has Square-Enix ever been good about release dates? Final Fantasy XII and Kingdom Hearts II quickly spring to mind, hell we are still waiting for Versus aka Final Fantasy 15. So to expect Final Fantasy VII Remake next year is a bit premature to hope for. Though, I would love to be wrong!

The next big mountain to climb for Square-Enix is how it chooses to unveil key details on FFVII Remake and the choices they made to make it modernized. Square-Enix knows they have to be very delicate with this, FF7 is considered biblical, holy material here. There's millions of fans deeply attached to this title. So i have no doubt SE will be testing each piece and teasing fans to see what reaction they get.

Which, to no surprise as I was writing this piece up, Tetsuya Nomura already came out explaining to Official PlayStation Magazine that there will be some dramatic changes made, mostly to be expect for the game-play. Honestly, this came to no surprise for me. I seriously doubted a new title coming years out, would have a traditional turn base system or as your character running across the map and then randomly zoning to a battle stage, Pokemon style.

While die-hards long for such style of play, Nomura has been sort of famous for his battle system in Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy Versus/15. A free roaming action style game. I don't expect FF7 Remake to be Devil May Cry meets Kingdom hearts, But I wouldn't be surprised to see FF7 remake borrowing elements of Final Fantasy XII battle system, where you were able to freely move, switch between characters and approach enemies in your sight. Add a dash of Kingdom hearts and it would work, but that's simply speculation on my part.

Good news is, Tetsuya Nomura seems quite aware of how attached fans are to Final Fantasy VII lore stating "There are certain plot points we don't want to interfere with or disturb, nor will we want to change elements that fans have very big attachments to" So looks like FF7 Remake will stay truthful to the original. So those most faithful to the house of Midgar can breath a sigh of relief.

Now the hardest part begins, the waiting.

#Square-Enix #Final Fantasy #Final Fantasy VII #PS4 #Sony

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