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insanehobbit · 3 years

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a twenty-five thousand word post about a twenty-three year old “debate”

As time goes on, I’m baffled that it remains a commonly held opinion that:

The LTD remains unresolved

SE is deliberately playing coy, and are (or have been) afraid to resolve it.

To me, the answer is as clear as day, and yet seeing so many people acting as if it’s a question that remains unanswered makes me wonder if I’m the crazy one.

So I am going to try to articulate my thought process here, not because I expect to change any hearts and minds, but more to get these thoughts out of my head and onto a page so I can finally read a book and/or watch reruns of Shark Tank in peace.

To start off, there are two categories of argument (that are among, if not the most widely used lines of argument) that I will try NOT to engage with:

1) Quotes from Ultimania or developer interviews - while they’re great for easter eggs and behind-the-scenes info, if a guidebook is required to understand key plot points, you have fundamentally failed as a storyteller. Now the question of which character wants to bone whom is often something that can be relegated to a guidebook, but in the case of FF7, you would be watching two very different stories play out depending on who Cloud ends up with.

Of course, the Ultimanias do spell this out clearly, but luckily for us, SE are competent enough storytellers that we can find the answer by looking at the text alone.

2) Arguments about character actions/motivations — specifically, I’m talking about stuff like “Cloud made this face in this scene, which means be must be [insert whatever here].”

Especially when it comes to the LTD, these tend to focus on individual actions, decontextualizing them from their role in the narrative as a whole. LTDers often try to put themselves in the character’s shoes to suss out what they may be thinking and feeling in those moments. These arguments will be colored by personal experiences, which will inevitably vary.

Let’s take for example Cloud’s behavior in Advent Children. One may argue that it makes total sense given that he’s dying and fears failing the ones he loves. Another may argue that there’s no way that he would run unless he was deeply unhappy and pining after a lost love. Well, you’ll probably just be talking over each other until the cows come home. Such is the problem with trying to play armchair therapist with a fictional character. It’s not like we can ask Cloud himself why he did what he did (and even if we could, he’s not the exactly the most reliable narrator in the world). Instead, in trying to understand his motivations, we are left with no choice but to draw comparisons with our own personal experiences, those of our friends, or other works of media we’ve consumed. Any interpretation would be inherently subjective and honestly, a futile subject for debate.

There’s nothing wrong with drawing personal connections with fictional characters of course. That is the purpose of art after all. They are vessels of empathy. But when we’re talking about what is canon, it doesn’t matter what we take away. What matters is the creators’ intent.

Cloud, Tifa and Aerith are not your friends Bob, Alice and Maude. They are characters created by Square Enix. Real people can behave in a variety of different ways if they found themselves in the situations faced by our dear trio; however, FF7 characters are not sentient creatures. Everything they do or say is dictated by the developers to serve the story they are trying to tell.

So what do we have left then? Am I asking you, dear reader, to just trust me, anonymous stranger on the Internet, when I tell you #clotiiscanon. Well, in a sense, yes, but more seriously, I’m going to try to suss out what the creator’s intent is based on what is, and more importantly, what isn’t, on screen.

Instead of putting ourselves in the shoes of the characters, let’s try putting ourselves in the shoes of the creators. So the question would then be, if the intent is X, then what purpose does character Y or scene Z serve?

The story of FF7 isn’t the immutable word of God etched in a stone tablet. For every scene that made it into the final game, there are dozens of alternatives that were tossed aside. Let us also not forget the crude economics of popular storytelling. Spending resources on one particular aspect of the game may mean something entirely unrelated will have to be cut for time. Thus, the absence of a particular character/scenario is an alternative in itself. So with all these options at their disposal, why is the scene we see before us the one that made it into the final cut? — Before we dive in, I also want to define two broad categories of narrative: messy and clean.

Messy narratives are ones I would define as stories that try to illuminate something about the human condition, but may not leave the audience feeling very good by the end of it. The protagonists, while not always anti-heroes, don’t always exhibit the kind of growth we’d like, don’t always learn their lessons, probably aren’t the best role models. The endings are often ambivalent, ambiguous, and leaves room for the audience to take away from it what they will. This is the category I would put art films and prestige cable dramas.

Clean narratives are where I would categorize most popular forms of entertainment. Not that these characters necessarily lack nuance, but whatever flaws are portrayed are something to be overcome by the end of story. The protagonists are characters you’re supposed to want to root for

Final Fantasy as a series would fall under the ‘clean’ category. Sure, many of the protagonists start out as jerks, but they grow through these flaws and become true heroes by the end of their journey. Hell, a lot of the time even the villains are redeemed. They want you to like the characters you’re spending a 40+ hr journey with. Their depictions can still be realistic, but they will become the most idealized versions of themselves by the end of their journeys.

This is important to establish, because we can then assume that it is not SE’s intent to make any of their main characters come off pathetic losers or unrepentant assholes. Now whether or not they succeed in that endeavor is another question entirely.

FF7 OG or The dumbest thought experiment in the world

With that one thousand word preamble out of the way, let’s finally take a look at the text. In lieu of going through the OG’s story beat by beat, let’s try this thought experiment:

Imagine it’s 1996, and you’re a development executive at what was then Squaresoft. The plucky, young development team has the first draft of what will become the game we know as Final Fantasy VII. Like the preceding entries in the series, it’s a world-spanning action adventure RPG, with a key subplot being the epic tragic romance between its hero and heroine, Cloud and Aerith.

They ask you for your notes.

(For the sake of your sanity and mine, let’s limit our hypothetical notes to the romantic subplot)

Disc 1 - everything seems to be on the right track. Nice meet-cute, lots of moments developing the relationship between our pair. Creating a love triangle with this Tifa character is an interesting choice, but she’s a comparatively minor character so she probably won’t be a real threat and will find her happiness elsewhere by the end of the game. You may note that they’re leaning a bit too much into Tifa and Cloud’s past. Especially the childhood promise flashback early in the game — cute scene, but a distraction from main story and main pairing — fodder for the chopping block. You may also bump on the fact that Aerith is initially attracted to Cloud because he reminds her of an ex, but this is supposed to be a more mature FF. That can be an obstacle they overcome as Aerith gets to know the real Cloud.

Aerith dies, but it is supposed to be a tragic romance after all. Death doesn’t have to be the end for this relationship, especially since Aerith is an Ancient after all.

It’s when Disc 2 starts that things go off the rails. First off, it feels like an awfully short time for Cloud to be grieving the love of his life, though it’s somewhat understandable. This story is not just a romance. There are other concerns after all, Cloud’s identity crisis for one. Though said identity crisis involves spending a lot of time developing his relationship with another woman. It’s one thing for Cloud and Tifa to be from the same hometown, but does she really need to play such an outsized role in his internal conflict? This might give the player the wrong impression.

You get to the Northern Crater, and it just feels all wrong. Cloud is more or less fine after the love of his life is murdered in front of his eyes but has a complete mental breakdown to the point that he’s temporarily removed as a playable character because Tifa loses faith in him??? Shouldn’t it be the other way around?

Oh, but it only gets worse from here. With Cloud gone, the POV switches to Tifa and her feelings for him and her desire to find him. The opening of the game is also recontextualized when you learn the only reason that Cloud was part of the first Reactor mission that starts the game is because Tifa found him and wanted to keep an eye on him.

Then you get to Mideel and the alarm bells are going off. Tifa drops everything, removing her from the party as well, to take care of Cloud while he’s a catatonic vegetable? Not good. Very not good. This level of selfless devotion is going to make Cloud look like a total asshole when he rejects her in favor of Aerith. Speaking of Aerith, she uh…hasn’t been mentioned for some time. In fact, her relationship with Cloud has remained completely static after Disc 1, practically nonexistent, while his with Tifa has been building and building. Developing a rival relationship that then needs to be dismantled rather than developing the endgame relationship doesn’t feel like a particularly valuable use of time and resources.

By the time you get to the Lifestream scene, you’re about ready to toss the script out of the window. Here’s the emotional climax of the entire game, where Cloud’s internal conflict is finally resolved, and it almost entirely revolves around Tifa? Rather than revisiting the many moments of mental anguish we experienced during the game itself — featuring other characters, including let’s say, Aerith — it’s about a hereto unknown past that only Tifa has access to? Not only that, but we learn that the reason Cloud wanted to join SOLDIER was to impress Tifa, and the reason he adopted his false persona was because he was so ashamed that he couldn’t live up to the person he thought Tifa wanted him to be? Here, we finally get a look into the inner life of one half of our epic couple and…it entirely revolves around another woman??

Cloud is finally his real self, and hey, it looks like he finally remembers Aerith, that’s at least a step in the right direction. Though still not great. With his emotional arc already resolved, any further romantic developments is going to feel extraneous and anticlimactic. It just doesn’t feel like there’s enough time to establish that:

Cloud’s romantic feelings for Tifa (which were strong enough to launch his hero’s journey) have transformed into something entirely platonic in the past few days/weeks

Cloud’s feelings for Aerith that he developed while he was pretending to be someone else (and not just any someone, but Aerith’s ex of all people) are real.

This isn’t a romantic melodrama after all. There’s still a villain to kill and a world to save.

Cloud does speak of Aerith wistfully, and even quite personally at times, yet every time he talks about her, he’s surrounded by the other party members. A scene or two where he can grapple with his feelings for her on his own would help. Her ghost appearing in the Sector 5 Church feels like a great opportunity for this to happen, but he doesn’t interact with it at all. What gives? Missed opportunity after missed opportunity.

The night before the final battle, Cloud asks the entire party to find what they’re fighting for. This feels like a great (and perhaps the last) opportunity to establish that for Cloud, it’s in Aerith’s memory and out of his love for her. He could spend those hours alone in any number of locations associated with her — the Church, the Temple of the Ancients, the Forgotten City.

Instead — none of those happens. Instead, once again, it’s Cloud and Tifa in another scene where they’re the only two characters in the scene. You’re really going to have Cloud spend what could very well be the last night of his life with another woman? With a fade to black that strongly implies they slept together? In one fell swoop, you’re portraying Cloud as a guy who not only betrays the memory of his lost love, but is also incredibly callous towards the feelings of another woman by taking advantage of her vulnerability. Why are we rooting for him to succeed again?

Cloud and the gang finally defeat Sephiroth, and Aerith guides him back into the real world. Is he finally explicitly stating that he’s searching for her (though they’ve really waited until the last minute to do so), but again, why is Tifa in this scene? Shouldn’t it just be Cloud and Aerith alone? Why have Tifa be there at all? Why have her and her alone of all the party members be the one waiting for Cloud? Do you need to have Tifa there to be rejected while Cloud professes his unending love for Aerith? It just feels needlessly cruel and distracts from what should be the sole focus of the scene, the love between Cloud and Aerith.

What a mess.

You finish reading, and since it is probably too late in the development process to just fire everyone, you offer a few suggestions that will clarify the intended romance while the retaining the other plot points/general themes of the game.

Here they are, ordered by scale of change, from minor to drastic:

Option 1 would be to keep most of the story in tact, but rearrange the sequence of events so that the Lifestream sequence happens before Aerith’s death. That way, Cloud is his true self and fully aware of his feelings for both women before Aerith’s death. That way, his past with Tifa isn’t some ticking bomb waiting to go off in the second half of the game. That development will cease at the Lifestream scene. Cloud will realize the affection he held for her as a child is no longer the case. He is grateful for the past they shared, but his future is with Aerith. He makes a clear choice before that future is taken away from him with her death. The rest of the game will go on more or less the same (with the Highwind scene being eliminated, of course) making it clear, that avenging the death of his beloved is one of, if not the, primary motivation for him wanting to defeat Sephiroth.

The problem with this “fix” is that a big part of the reason that Aerith gets killed is because of Cloud’s identity crisis. If said crisis is resolved, the impact of her death will be diminished, because it would feel arbitrary rather than something that stems from the consequences of Cloud’s actions. More of the story will need to be reconceived so that this moment holds the same emotional weight.

Another problem is why the Lifestream scene needs to exist at all. Why spend all that time developing the backstory for a relationship that will be moot by the end of the game? It makes Tifa feel like less of a character and more of a plot device, who becomes irrelevant after she services the protagonist’s character development and then has none of her own. That’s no way to treat one of the main characters of your game.

Option 2 would be to re-imagine Tifa’s character entirely. You can keep some of her history with Cloud in tact, but expand her backstory so she is able to have a satisfactory character arc outside of her relationship with Cloud. You could explore the five years in her life since the Nibelheim incident. Maybe she wasn’t in Midgar the whole time. Maybe, like Barret, she has her own Corel, and maybe reconciling with her past there is the climax of her emotional arc as opposed to her past with Cloud. For Cloud too, her importance needs to be diminished. She can be one of the people who help him find his true self in the Lifestream, but not the only person. There’s no reason the other people he’s met on his journey can’t be there. Thus their relationship remains somewhat important, but their journeys are not so entwined that it distracts from Cloud and Aerith’s romance.

Option 3 would be to really lean into the doomed romance element of Cloud and Aerith’s relationship. Have her death be the cause of his mental breakdown, and have Aerith be the one in the Lifestream who is able to put his mind back together and bring him back to the realm of consciousness. After he emerges, he has the dual goal of defeating Sephiroth and trying to reunite with Aerith. In the end, in order to do the former, he has to relinquish the latter. He makes selfless choice. He makes the choice that resonates the overall theme of the game. It’s a bittersweet but satisfying ending. Cloud chooses to honor her memory and her purpose over the chance to physically bring her back. In this version of the game, the love triangle serves no purpose. There’s no role for Tifa at all.

Okay, we can be done with this strained counterfactual. What I’ve hopefully illustrated is that while developers had countless opportunities to solidify Cloud/Aerith as the canon couple in Discs 2 and 3 of the game, they instead chose a different route each and every time. What should also be clear is that the biggest obstacle standing in their way is not Aerith’s death, but the fact that Tifa exists.

At least in the form she takes in the final game, as a playable character and at the very least, the 3rd most important character in game’s story. She is not just another recurring NPC or an antagonist. Her love for Cloud is not going to be treated like a mere trifle or obstacle. If Cloud/Aerith was supposed to be the endgame ship, there would be no need for a love triangle and no need to include Tifa in the game at all. Death is a big enough obstacle, developing Cloud’s relationship with Tifa would only distract from and diminish his romance with Aerith.

I think this is something the dead enders understand intuitively, even more so than many Cloti shippers. Which is why some of them try to dismiss Tifa’s importance in the story so that she becomes a minor supporting character at best, or denigrate her character to the point that she becomes an actual villain. The Seifer to a Squall, the Seymour to a Tidus, hell even a Quistis to a Rinoa, they know how to deal with, but a Tifa Lockhart? As she is actually depicted in Final Fantasy VII? They have no playbook for that, and thus they desperately try to squeeze her into one of these other roles.

Let’s try another thought experiment, and see what would to other FF romances if we inserted a Tifa Lockhart-esque character in the middle of them.

FFXV is a perfect example because it features the sort of tragic love beyond death romance that certain shippers want Cloud and Aerith to be. Now, did I think FFXV was a good game? No. Did I think Noctis/Luna was a particularly well-developed romance? Also no. Did I have any question in my mind whatsoever that they were the canon relationship? Absolutely not.

Is this because they kiss at the end? Well sure, that helps, but also it’s because the game doesn’t spend the chapters after Luna’s death developing Noctis’ relationship with another woman. If Noctis/Luna had the same sort of development as Cloud/Aerith, then after Luna dies, Iris would suddenly pop in and play a much more prominent role. The game would flashback to her past and her relationship with Noctis. And it would be through his relationship with Iris that Noctis understands his duty to become king or a crystal or whatever the fuck that game was about. Iris is by Noctis’ side through the final battle, and when he ascends the throne in that dreamworld or whatever. There, Luna finally shows up again. Iris is still in the frame when Noctis tells her something like ‘Oh sorry, girl, I’ve been in love with Luna all along,” before he kisses Luna and the game ends.

(a very real scene from a very good game)

Come on. It would be utterly ludicrous and an utter disservice to every character involved, yet that is essentially the argument Cloud/Aerith shippers are making. SE may have made some pretty questionable storytelling decisions in the past, but they aren’t that bad at this.

Or in FFVIII, it would be like reordering the sequence of events so that Squall remembers that he grew up in an orphanage with all the other kids after Rinoa falls into a coma. And while Rinoa is out of commission, instead of Quistis gracefully bowing out after realizing she had mistaken her feelings of sisterly affection for love, it becomes Quistis’ childhood relationship with Squall that allows him to remember his past and re-contextualizes the game we’ve played thus far, so that the player realizes that it was actually Quistis who was his motivation all along. Then after this brief emotional detour, his romance with Rinoa would continue as usual. Absolutely absurd.

The Final Fantasy games certainly have their fair share of plot holes, but they’ve never whiffed on a romance this badly.

A somewhat more serious character analysis of the OG

What then is Tifa’s actual role in the story of FFVII? Her character is intricately connected to Cloud’s. In fact, they practically have the same arc, though Tifa’s is rather understated compared to his. She doesn’t adopt a false persona after all. For both of them, the flaw that they must learn to overcome over the course of the game is their fear of confronting the truth of their past. Or to put it more crudely, if they’re not lying, they’re at the very least omitting the truth. Cloud does so to protect himself from his fear of being exposed as a failure. Tifa does so at the expense of herself, because she fears the truth will do more harm than good. They’re two sides of the same coin. Nonetheless, their lying has serious ramifications.

The past they’re both afraid to confront is of course the Nibelheim Incident from five years ago. Thus, the key points in their emotional journeys coincide with the three conflicting Nibelheim flashbacks depicted in the game: Cloud’s false memory in Kalm, Sephiroth’s false vision in the Northern Crater, and the truth in the Lifestream.

Before they enter the Lifestream, both Cloud and Tifa are at the lowest of their lows. Cloud has had a complete mental breakdown and is functionally a vegetable. Tifa has given up everything to take care of Cloud as she feels responsible for his condition. If he doesn’t recover, she may never find peace.

With nothing left to lose, they both try to face the past head on. For Cloud, it’s a bit harder. At the heart of all this confusion, is of course, the Nibelheim Incident. How does Cloud know all these things he shouldn’t if Tifa doesn’t remember seeing him there? The emotional climax for both Cloud and Tifa, and arguably the game as a whole, is the moment the Shinra grunt removes his helmet to reveal that Cloud was there all along.

Tifa is the only character who can play this role for Cloud. It’s not like she a found a videotape in the Lifestream labeled ‘Nibelheim Incident - REAL’ and voila, Cloud is fixed. No, she is the only one who can help him because she is the only person who lived through that moment. No one else could make Cloud believe it. You could have Aerith or anyone else trying to tell him what actually happened, but why would he believe it anymore than the story Sephiroth told him at the Northern Crater?

With Tifa, it’s different. Not only was she physically there, but she’s putting as much at risk in what the truth may reveal. She’s not just a plot device to facilitate Cloud’s character development. The Lifestream sequence is as much the culmination of her own character arc. If it goes the wrong way, “Cloud” may find out that he’s just a fake after all, and Tifa may learn that boy she thought she’d been on this journey with had died years ago. That there’s no one left from her past, that it was all in her head, that she’s all alone. Avoiding this truth is a comfort, but in this moment, they’re both putting themselves on the line. Being completely vulnerable in front of the person they’re most terrified of being vulnerable with.

The developers have structured Cloud and Tifa’s character arcs so that the crux is a moment where the other is literally the only person who could provide the answer they need. Without each other, as far as the story is concerned, Cloud and Tifa would remain incomplete.

Aerith’s character arc is a different beast entirely. She is the closest we have to the traditional Campbellian Hero. She is the Chosen One, the literal last of her kind, who has been resisting the call to adventure until she can no longer. The touchstones of her character arc are the moments she learns more about her Cetra past and comes to terms with her role in protecting the planet - namely Cosmo Canyon, the Temple of the Ancients and the Forgotten City.

How do hers and Cloud’s arcs intersect? When it comes to the Nibelheim incident, she is a merely a spectator (at least during the Kalm flashback, as for the other two, she is uh…deceased). Cloud attacking her at the Temple of the Ancients, which results in her running to the Forgotten City alone and getting killed by Sephiroth, certainly exacerbates his mental deterioration, but it is by no means a turning point in his arc the way the Northern Crater is.

As for Cloud’s role in Aerith’s arc, their meeting is quite important in that it sets forth the series of events that leads her to getting captured by Shinra and thus meeting “Sephiroth” and wanting to learn more about the Cetra. It’s the inciting incident if we’re going to be really pedantic about it, yet Aerith’s actual character development is not dependent on her relationship with Cloud. It is about her communion with her Cetra Ancestry and the planet.

To put it in other terms, all else being the same, Aerith could still have a satisfying character arc had Cloud not crashed down into her Church. Sure, the game would look pretty different, but there are other ways for her to transform from a flirty, at times frivolous girl to an almost Christ-like figure who accepts the burden of protecting the planet.

Such is not the case for Cloud and Tifa. Their character arcs are built around their shared past and their relationship with one another. Without Tifa, you would have to rewrite Cloud’s character entirely. What was his motivation for joining SOLDIER? How did he get on that AVALANCHE mission in the first place? Who can possibly know him well enough to put his mind back together after it falls apart? If the answer to all these questions is the same person, then congratulations, you’ve just reverse engineered Tifa Lockhart.

Tifa fares a little better. Without Cloud, she would be a sad, sweet character who never gets the opportunity to reconcile with the trauma of her past. Superficially, a lot would be the same, but she would ultimately be quite static and all the less interesting for it.

Let’s also take a brief gander at Tifa’s role after the Lifestream sequence. At this point in the game, both Tifa and Cloud’s emotional arcs are essentially complete. They are now the most idealized versions of themselves, characters the players are meant to admire and aspire to. However they are depicted going forward, it would not be the creator’s intent for their actions to be perceived in a negative light.

A few key moments standout, ones that would not be included if the game was intended to end with any other romantic pairing or with Cloud’s romantic interest left ambiguous:

The Highwind scene, which I’ve gone over above. It doesn’t matter if you get the Low Affection or High Affection version. It would not reflect well on either Cloud or Tifa if he chose to spend what could be his last night alive with a woman whose feelings he did not reciprocate.

Before the final battle with Sephiroth, the party members scream out the reasons they’re fighting. Barret specifically calls out AVALANCHE, Marlene and Dyne, Red XIII specifically calls out his Grandpa, and Tifa specifically calls out Cloud. You are not going to make one of Tifa’s last moments in the game be her pining after a guy who has no interest in her. Not when you could easily have her mention something like her past, her hometown or hell even AVALANCHE and Marlene like Barret. If Tifa’s feelings for Cloud are meant to be unrequited, then it would be a character flaw that would be dealt with long before the final battle (see: Quistis in FF8 or Eowyn in the Lord of the Rings). They would not still be on display at moment like this.

Tifa being the only one there when Cloud jumps into the Lifestream to fight Sephiroth for the last time, and Tifa being the only one there when he emerges. She is very much playing the traditional partner/spouse role here, when you could easily have the entire party present or no one there at all. There is clearly something special about her relationship with Cloud that sets her apart from the other party members.

Once again, let’s look at the “I think I can meet her there moment.” And let’s put side the translation (the Japanese is certainly more ambiguous, and it’s not like the game had any trouble having Cloud call Aerith by her name before this). If Cloud was really expressing his desire to reunite with Aerith, and thus his rejection of Tifa, then the penultimate scene of this game is one that involves the complete utter and humiliation of one of its main characters since Tifa’s reply would indicate she’s inviting herself to a romantic reunion she has no part in. Not only that, but to anyone who is not Cl*rith shipper, the protagonist of the game is going to come off as a callous asshole. That cannot possibly be the creator’s intention. They are competent enough to depict an act of love without drawing attention to the party hurt by that love.

What then could possibly be the meaning? Could it possibly be Cloud trying to comfort Tifa by trying to find a silver lining in what appears to be their impending death? That this means they may get to see their departed loved ones again, including their mutual friend, Aerith? (I will note that Tifa talks about Aerith as much, if not even more than Cloud, after her death). Seems pretty reasonable to me, this being an interpretation of the scene that aligns with the overall themes of the game, and casts every character in positive light during this bittersweet moment.

Luckily enough, we have an entire fucking Compilation to find out which is right.

But before we get there, I’m sure some of you (lol @ me thinking anyone is still reading this) are asking, if Cloti is canon, then why is there a love triangle at all? Why even hint at the possibility of a romance between Cloud and Aerith? Wouldn’t that also be a waste of time and resources if they weren’t meant to be canon?

Well, there are two very important reasons that have nothing to do with romance and everything to do with two of the game’s biggest twists:

Aerith initially being attracted to Cloud’s similarities to Zack/commenting on the uncanniness of said similarities is an organic way to introduce the man Cloud’s pretending to be. Without it, the reveal in the Lifestream would fall a bit flat. The man he’s been emulating all along would just be some sort of generic hero rather than a person whose history and deeds already encountered during the course of the game. Notably for this to work, the game only has to establish Aerith’s attraction to Cloud.

To build the player’s attachment to Aerith before her death/obscure the fact that she’s going to die. With the technological limitations of the day, the only way to get the player to interact with Aerith is through the player character (AKA Cloud), and adding an element of choice (AKA the Gold Saucer Date mechanic) makes the player even more invested. This then elevates Aerith’s relationship with Cloud over hers with any other character. At the same time, because her time in the game is limited, Cloud ends up interacting with Aerith more than any of the other characters, at least in Disc 1. The choice to make many of these interactions flirty/romantic also toys with player expectations. One does not expect the hero’s love interest to die halfway through the game. The game itself also spends a bit of time teasing the romance, albeit, largely in superficial ways like other characters commenting on their relationship or Cait Sith reading their love fortune at the Temple of the Ancients. Yet, despite the quantity of their personal interactions, Cloud and Aerith never display any moments of deep love or devotion that one associates with a Final Fantasy romance. They never have the time. What the game establishes then is the potential of a romance rather than the romance itself. Aerith’s death hurts because of all that lost potential. There so many things she wanted to do, so many places she wanted to see that will never happen because her life is cut short. Part of what is lost, of course, is the potential of her romance with Cloud.

This creative choice is a lot more controversial since it elevates subverting audience expectations over character, and understandably leads to some player confusion. What’s the point of all this set up if there’s not going to be a pay off? Well, that is kind of the point. Death is frustrating because of all the unknowns and what-ifs. But, I suppose some people just can’t accept that fact in a game like this.

One last note on the OG before we move on: Even though this from an Ultimania, since we’re talking about story development and creator intent, I thought it was relevant to include: the fact that Aerith was the sole heroine in early drafts of the game is not the LTD trump card so people think it is. Stories undergo radical changes through the development process. More often than not, there are too many characters, and characters are often combined or removed if their presence feels redundant or confusing.

In this case, the opposite happened. Tifa was added later in the development process as a second heroine. Let’s say that Aerith was the Last Ancient and the protagonist’s sole love interest in this early draft of Final Fantasy VII. In the game that was actually released, that role was split between two characters (and last I checked, Tifa is not the last of a dying race), and Aerith dies halfway through the game, so what does that suggest about how Aerith’s role may have changed in the final product? Again, if Aerith was intended to be Cloud’s love interest, Tifa simply would not exist.

A begrudging analysis of our favorite straight-to-DVD sequel

Let’s move onto the Compilation. And in doing so, completely forget about the word vomit that’s been written above. While it’s quite clear to me now that there’s no way in hell the developers would have intended the last scene in the game to be both a confirmation of Cloud’s love for Aerith and his rejection of Tifa, in my younger and more vulnerable years, I wasn’t so sure. In fact, this was the prevailing interpretation back in the pre-Compilation Dark Ages. Probably because of a dubious English translation of the game and a couple of ambiguous cameos in Final Fantasy Tactics and Kingdom Hearts were all we had to go on.

How then did the official sequel to Final Fantasy VII change those priors?

Two years after the events of the game, Cloud is living as a family with Tifa and two kids rather than scouring the planet for a way to be reunited with Aerith. Shouldn’t the debate be well and over with that? Obviously not, and it’s not just because people were being obstinate. Part of the confusion stems from Advent Children itself, but I would argue that did not come from an intent to play coy/keep Cloud’s romantic desires ambiguous, but rather a failure of execution of his character arc.

Now I wasn’t the biggest fan of the film when I first watched a bootlegged copy I downloaded off LimeWire in 2005, and I like it even less now, but I better understand its failures, given its unique position as a sequel to a beloved game and the cornerstone of launching the Compilation.

The original game didn’t have such constraints on its storytelling. Outside of including a few elements that make it recognizable as a Final Fantasy (Moogles, Chocobos, Summons, etc.) and being a good enough game to be a financial success, the developers pretty much had free rein in terms of what story they wanted to tell, what characters they would use to tell it, and how long it took for them to tell said story.

With Advent Children, telling a good story was not the sole or even primary goal. Instead, it had to:

Do some fanservice: The core audience is going to be the OG fanbase, who would be expecting to see modern, high-def depictions of all the memorable and beloved characters from the game, no matter if the natural end point of their stories is long over.

Set up the rest of the Compilation - Advent Children is the draw with the big stars, but also a way to showcase the lesser known characters from from the Compilation who are going to be leading their own spinoffs. It’s part feature film/part advertisement for the rest of the Compilation. Thus, the Turks, Vincent and Zack get larger roles in the film than one might expect to attract interest to the spinoffs they lead.

Show off its technical prowess: SE probably has enough self awareness to realize that what’s going to set it apart from other animated feature films is not its novel storytelling, but its graphical capabilities. Thus, to really show off those graphics, the film is going to be packed to the brim with big, complicated action scenes with lots of moving parts, as opposed to quieter character driven moments.

These considerations are not unique to Advent Children, but important to note nonetheless:

As a sequel, the stakes have to be just as high if not higher than those in the original work. Since the threat in the OG was the literal end of the world, in Advent Children, the world’s gotta end again

The OG was around 30-40 hours long. An average feature-length film is roughly two hours. Video games and films are two very different mediums. As many TV writers who have tried to make the transition to film (and vice-versa) can tell you, success in one medium does not translate to success in another.

With so much to do in so little time, is it any wonder then that it is again Sephiroth who is the villain trying to destroy the world and Aerith in the Lifestream the deus ex machina who saves the day?

All of this is just a long-winded way to say, certain choices in the Advent Children that may seem to exist only to perpetuate the LTD were made with many other storytelling considerations in mind.

When trying to understand the intended character arcs and relationship dynamics, you cannot treat the film as a collection of scenes devoid of context. You can’t just say - “well here’s a scene where Cloud seems to miss Aerith, and here’s another scene where Cloud and Tifa fight. Obviously, Cloud loves Aerith.” You have to look at what purpose these scenes serve in the grander narrative.

And what is this grander narrative? To put it in simplistic terms, Aerith is the obstacle, and Tifa is goal. Cloud must get over his guilt over Aerith’s death so that he can return to living with Tifa and the children in peace.

The scenes following the prologue are setting up the emotional stakes of film - the problem that will be resolved by the film’s end. The problem being depicted here is not Aerith’s absence from Cloud’s life, but Cloud’s absence from his family. We see Tifa walking through Seventh Heaven saying “he’s not here anymore,” we see Denzel in his sickbed asking for Cloud, we see a framed photo of the four of them on Cloud’s desk. We see Cloud letting Tifa’s call go to voicemail.

What we do not see is Aerith, who does not appear until almost halfway through the film.

Cloud spends the first of the film avoiding confrontation with the Remnants/dealing with the return of Sephiroth. It’s only when Tifa is injured, and Denzel and Marlene get kidnapped that he goes to face his problems head on.

Before the final battle, when Cloud has exorcised his emotional demons and is about to face his physical demons, what do we see? We see Cloud telling Marlene that it’s his turn to take care of her, Denzel and Tifa the way they’ve taken care of him. We see Cloud telling Tifa that he ‘feels lighter’ and tacitly confirming that she was correct when she called him out earlier in the film. We see Cloud confirming to Denzel that he’s going home after this is all over.

What we do not see is Cloud telepathically communicating with Aerith to say, “Hey boo, can’t wait to beat Sephiroth so I can finally reunite with you in the Promised Land. Xoxoxo.” Aerith doesn’t factor in at all. Returning to his family is his goal, and his fight with Bahamut/the Remnants/Sephiroth/whatever the fuck is the final obstacle he has to face before reaching this goal.

This is reiterated again when Cloud is shot by Yazoo and seemingly perishes in an explosion. What is at stake with his “death”? We see Tifa calling his name while looking out the airship. We see Denzel and Marlene waiting for him at Seventh Heaven. We do not see Aerith watching over him in the Lifestream.

Now, Aerith does play an important role in Cloud’s arc when she shows up at about the midpoint of the film. You could fairly argue that it’s the turning point in Cloud’s emotional journey, the moment when he finally decides to confront his problems. But even if it’s only Cloud and Aerith in the scene, it’s not really about their relationship at all.

Let’s consider the context before this scene happens. Denzel and Marlene have been kidnapped by the Remnants; Tifa was nearly killed in a fight with another. This is Cloud at his lowest point. It’s his worst fears come to pass. His guilt over Aerith’s death is directly addressed at this moment in the film because it is not so much about his feelings for Aerith as it is about how Cloud fears the failures of his past (one of the biggest being her death) would continue into the present. If it was just about Aerith, we could have seen Cloud asking for her forgiveness at any other time in the film. It occurs when it does because this when his guilt over Aerith’s death intersects with his actual conflict, his fear that he’ll fail the the ones he loves. She appears when he’s at the Forgotten City where he goes to save the children. The same location where he had failed two year before.

This connection is made explicit when Cloud has flashes of Zack and Aerith’s deaths before he saves Denzel and Tifa from Bahamut. Again, Cloud’s dwelling on the past is directly related to his fears of being unable to protect his present.

Aerith is a feminine figure who is associated with flowers. That combined with the players’ memory of her and her relationship with Cloud in the OG, I can see how their scenes can be construed as romantic, but I really do not think that it is the creators’ intent to portray any romantic longing on Cloud’s part.

If they wanted to suggest that Cloud was still in love with Aerith or even leave his romantic interest ambiguous, there is no way in hell they would have had Cloud living with Tifa and two kids prior to the film’s events. To say nothing of opening the film by showing the pain his absence brings.

A romantic reading of Cloud’s guilt over Aerith’s death would suggest that he entered into a relationship with Tifa and started raising two children with her while still holding a torch for Aerith and hoping for a way to be reunited with her. The implication would be that Tifa is his second choice, and he is settling. Now, is this a dynamic that occurs in real life? Absolutely. Is this something that is often depicted in some films and television? Sure - in fact this very premise is at the core of one my favorite films of the last decade - 45 Years — and spoiler alert — the guy does not come off well in this situation. But once again, Cloud is not a real person, and Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children is not a John Cassavettes film or an Ingmar Bergman chamber drama. It is a 2-hour long straight to DVD sequel for a video game made for teens. This kind of messy, if realistic, relationship dynamic is not what this particular work is trying to explore.

(one of these is a good film!)

By the end of Advent Children, Cloud is once again the idealized version of himself. A hero that the audience is supposed to like and admire. We are supposed to think that his actions in the first half of the movie (wallowing in his guilt and abandoning his family) were bad. These are the flaws that he must overcome through the course of the film, and by the end he does. If he really had been settling and treating his Seventh Heaven family as a second choice prior to the events of the film, that too would obviously be a character flaw that needs to be addressed before the end of the film. It isn’t because this is a dynamic that only exists in certain people’s imaginations.

If the creators wanted to leave the Cloud & Aerith relationship open to a romantic interpretation, they didn’t have to write themselves into such a corner. They wouldn’t have to change the final film much at all, merely adjust the chronology a bit. Instead of Cloud already living as a family with Tifa, Marlene and Denzel prior to the beginning of the film, you would show them on the precipice of becoming a family, but with Cloud being unable to take the final step without getting over his feelings for Aerith first. This would leave space for him to love both women without coming off as an opportunistic jerk.

This is essentially the dynamic with Locke/Rachel/Celes in FFVI. Locke is unable to move on with Celes or anyone else until he finally finds closure with Rachel. It’s a lovely scene that does not diminish his relationships with either woman. He loved Rachel. He will love Celes. What the game does not have him do is enter into a relationship into Celes first and then when the party arrives at the Phoenix Cave, have him suddenly remember ‘Oh shit, I’ve gotta deal with my baggage with Rachel before I can really move on.’ That would not paint him in a particularly positive light.

Speaking of other Final Fantasies, let’s take a look another sequel in the series set two years after the events of the original work, one that is clearly the story of its protagonist searching for their lost love. And guess what? Final Fantasy X-2 does not begin with Yuna shacked up and raising two kids with another dude. And it certainly doesn’t begin with his perspective of the whole situation when Yuna decides to search for Tidus.

Square Enix knows how to write these kind of stories when they want to, and it’s clearly not their intent for Cloud and Aerith. Again, the biggest obstacle in the way of a Cloud/Aerith endgame isn’t space and time or death, it’s the existence of Tifa Lockhart.

A reasonable question to ask would be, if SE is not trying to ignite debate over the love triangle, why make Cloud’s relationship with Aerith a part of Advent Children at all? Why invite that sort of confusion? Well, the answer here, like the answer in the OG, is that Aerith’s role in the sequel is much more than her relationship with Cloud.

In the OG, it wasn’t Cloud and the gang who managed to stop Sephiroth and Meteor in the end, it was Aerith from the Lifestream. In a two-hour long film, you do not have the time to set up a completely new villain who can believably end the world, and since you pretty much have to include Sephiroth, the main antagonist can really only be him. No one else in the party has been established to have any magical Cetra powers, and again, since that’s not something that can be effectively established in a two-hour long film, and since Aerith needs to appear somehow, it again needs to be her who will save the day.

Given the time constraints, this external conflict has to be connected with Cloud’s internal conflict. In the OG, Cloud’s emotional arc is in resolved in the Lifestream, and then we spend a few more hours hunting down the Huge Materia/remembering what Holy is before resolving the external conflict of stopping Meteor. In Advent Children, we do not have that luxury of time. These turning points have to be one and same. It is only after Aerith is “introduced” in the film when Cloud asks her for forgiveness that she is able to help in the fight against the Remnants. Thus the turning point for Cloud’s character arc and the external conflict are the same. It’s understandably economical storytelling, though I wouldn’t call it particularly good storytelling.

As much as Cloud feels guilt over both Zack and Aerith’s deaths, it’s only Aerith who can play this dual role in the film. Zack can appear to help resolve Cloud’s emotional arc, but since he has no special Cetra powers or anything, there’s little he can do to help in Cloud’s fight against the Remnants. More time would need to be spent contriving a reason why Cloud is able to defeat the Remnants now when he wasn’t before or explaining why Aerith can suddenly help from the Lifestream when she had been absent before. (I still don’t think the film does a particularly good job of explaining this part, but that is a conversation for another time).

Another reason why Zack could not play this role is because at the time of AC’s original release, all we knew of Cloud and Zack’s relationship was contained in an optional flashback at the Shinra mansion after Cloud returns from the Lifestream. If it was Zack who suddenly showed up at Cloud’s lowest point, most viewers, even many who played the original game, would probably have been confused, and the moment would have fallen flat. On the other hand, even the most casual fan would have been aware of Aerith and her connection to Cloud, with her death scene being among the most well-known gaming moments of all time. Moreover, Aerith’s death is directly connected to Sephiroth, who is once again the threat in AC, whereas Zack was killed by Shinra goons. Aerith serves multiple purposes in a way that Zack just cannot.

Despite all this, though Aerith is more important to the film as a whole, many efforts are made to suggest that Zack and Aerith are equally important to Cloud. One of the first scenes in the film is Cloud moping around Zack’s grave (And unlike the scene with Aerith in the Forgotten City, it isn’t directly connected with Cloud’s present storyline in any way). We have the aforementioned scene where Cloud has flashes of both Aerith’s and Zack’s deaths when he saves Tifa and Denzel. Cloud has a scene where he’s standing back to back with Zack, mirroring his scene with in the Forgotten City with Aerith, before the climax of his fight with Sephiroth. In the Lifestream, after Cloud “dies,” it’s both Aerith and Zack who are there to send him back. Before the film ends, Cloud sees both Aerith and Zack leaving the church.

Now, were all these Zack appearances a way to promote the upcoming spin-off game that he’s going to lead? Of course. But the creators surely would have known that having Zack play such a similar role in Cloud’s arc would make Cloud’s relationship with Aerith feel less special and thus complicating a romantic interpretation of said relationship. If they wanted to encourage a romantic reading of Cloud’s lingering feelings for Aerith, they would have given Zack his own distinct role in the film. Or rather, they wouldn’t have put Zack in the film at all, and they certainly wouldn’t have him lead his own game, but we’ll get to the Zack of it all later.

The funny thing is, in a way, Zack is portrayed as being more special to Cloud. Zack only exists in the film to interact with Cloud and encourage him. Meanwhile. Aerith also has brief interactions with Kadaj, the Geostigma children and even Tifa before the film’s end. Aerith is there to save the whole world. Zack is there just for Cloud. If it’s Cloud’s relationship with Aerith that’s meant to be romantic, shouldn’t it be the other way around?

Let’s take a look at Tifa Lockhart. What role did she have to play in the FF7 sequel film? If, like some, you believed FF7 to be the Cloud/Aerith/Sephiroth show, then Tifa could have easily had a Barret-sized cameo in Advent Children. And honestly, she’s just a great martial artist. She has no special powers that would make her indispensable in a fight against Sephiroth. You certainly would not expect her to be the 2nd billed character in the film. Though of course, if you actually played through the Original Game with your eyes open, you would realize that Tifa Lockhart is instrumental to any story about Cloud Strife.

Unlike Aerith’s appearances, almost none of the suggestive scenes and dynamics between Cloud and Tifa had to be included in the film. As in, they serve no other plot related purpose and could have easily been cut from the final film if the creators weren’t trying to encourage a romantic interpretation of their relationship.

It feels inevitable now, but no one was expecting Cloud and Tifa to be living together and raising two kids. In the general consciousness, FF7 is Cloud and Sephiroth and their big swords and Aerith’s death. At the time, in the eyes of most fans and casual observers, Cloud and Tifa being together wasn’t a necessary part of the FF7 equation the way say, an epic fight between Cloud and Sephiroth would be. In fact, I don’t think even the biggest Cloti fans at the time would have imagined Cloud and Tifa living together would be their canon outcome in the sequel film.

Now can two platonic friends live together and raise two children together? Absolutely, but again Cloud and Tifa are not real people. They are fictional characters. A reasonable person (let’s use the legal definition of the term) who does not have brainworms from arguing over one of the dumbest debates on the Internet for 23 years would probably assume that two characters who were shown to be attracted to each other in the OG and who are now living together and raising two kids are in a romantic relationship. This is a reasonable assumption to make, and if SE wanted to leave Cloud’s romantic inclinations ambiguous, they simply would not be depicting Cloud and Tifa’s relationship in this manner. Cloud’s disrupted peace could have been a number of different things. He could have been a wandering mercenary, he could have been searching for a way to be reunited with Aerith. It didn’t have to be the family he formed with Tifa, but, then again, if you were actually paying attention to the story the OG was trying to tell, of course he would be living with Tifa.

Let’s also look at the scene where Cloud finds Tifa in the church after her fight with Loz. All the plot related information (who attacked her, Marlene being taken) is conveyed in the brief conversation they have before Cloud falls unconscious from Geostigma. What purpose do all the lingering shots of Cloud and Tifa in the flower bed in a Yin-Yang/non-sexual 69ing position serve if not to be suggestive of the type of relationship they have? It’s beautifully rendered but ultimately irrelevant to both the external and internal conflicts of the film.

Likewise, there is no reason why Cloud and Tifa needed to wake up in their children’s bedroom. No reason to show Cloud waking up with Tifa next to him in a way that almost makes you think they were in the same bed. And there is absolutely no reason whatsoever for a close-up of Tifa’s hand with the Wolf Ring on her ring finger while she is admonishing Cloud during what sounds like a domestic argument (This ring again comes into focus when Tifa leads Denzel to Cloud at the church at the end - there are dozens of ways this scene could have been rendered, but this is the one that was chosen.) If it wasn’t SE’s intent to emphasize the family dynamic and the intimate nature of Cloud and Tifa’s relationship, these scenes would not exist.

Let’s also take a look at Denzel, the only new character in the AC (give or take the Remnants). Again, given the film’s brief runtime, the fact that they’re not only adding a new character but giving him more screen time than almost every other AVALANCHE member must mean that he’s pretty important. While Denzel does have an arc of his own, especially in ACC, he is intricately connected to Cloud and Tifa and solidifies the family unit that they’ve been forming in Edge. Marlene still has Barret, but with the addition of Denzel, the family becomes something more real albeit even more tenuous given his Geostigma diagnosis. Without Denzel in the picture, it’s a bit easier to interpret Cloud’s distance from Tifa as romantic pining for another woman, but now it just seems absurd. The stakes are so much higher. Cloud and Tifa are at a completely different stage in their lives from the versions of these characters we met early on in the OG who were entangled in a frivolous love triangle. And yet some people are still stuck trying to fit these characters into a childish dynamic that died at the end of disc one along with a certain someone.

All this is there in the film, at least the director’s cut, if you really squint. But since SE preferred to spend its time on countless action sequences that have aged as well as whole milk in lieu of spending a few minutes showing Cloud’s family life before he got Geostigma to establish the emotional stakes, or a beat or two more on his reconciliation with Tifa and the kids, people may be understandably confused about Cloud’s arc. Has Cloud just been a moping around in misery for the two years post-OG? The answer is no, though that can only really be found in the accompanying novellas, specifically Case of Tifa.

Concerning the novellas, which we apparently must read to understand said DVD sequel

I really don’t know how you can read through CoT and still think there is anything ambiguous about the nature of Cloud and Tifa’s relationship. The “Because I have you this time,” Cloud telling Tifa he’ll remind her how to be strong when they’re alone, Cloud confidently agreeing when Marlene adds him to their family. Not to mention Barret and Cid’s brief conversation about Cloud and Tifa’s relationship in Case of Barret, after which Cid comments that “women wear the pants,” which Barret then follows by asking Cid about Shera. Again, a reasonable person would assume the couple in question are in a romantic relationship, and if this wasn’t the intent, these lines would not be present. Especially not in a novella about someone else.

Some try to argue that CoT just shows how incompatible Cloud and Tifa are because it features a few low points in their relationship. I don’t think that’s Nojima’s intent. Even if it was, it certainly wouldn’t be to prove that Cloud loves Aerith. This isn’t how you tell that story. Why waste all that time disproving a negative rather than proving a positive? We didn’t spend hours in FF8 watching Rinoa’s relationship with Seifer fall apart to understand how much better off she is with Squall. If Cloud and Aerith is meant to be a love story, then tell their love story. Why tell the story of how Cloud is incompatible with someone else?

Part of the confusion may be because CoT doesn’t tell a complete story in and of itself. The first half of the story (before Cloud has to deliver flowers to the Forgotten City) acts as a sort of epilogue to the OG, while the second half of the story is something of a prologue to Advent Children (or honestly its missing Act One). And to state the obvious, conflict is inherent to any story worth telling. It can’t just be all fluff, that’s what the fanfiction is for.

Tifa’s conflict is her fear that the fragile little family they’ve built in Edge is going to fall apart. Thus we see her fret about Cloud’s distance, the way this affects Marlene, and Denzel’s sickness. There are certainly some low moments here --- Tifa telling Cloud to drink in his room, asking if he loves her -- all ways for the threat to seem more real, the outcome more uncertain, yet there’s only one way this conflict can be resolved. One direction to which their relationship can move.

Again, by the end of this story, both characters are supposed to be the best versions of themselves, to find their “happy” endings so to speak. Tifa could certainly find happiness outside of a relationship with Cloud. She could decide that they’ve given it a shot, but they’re better off as friends. She’s grateful for this experience and she’s learned from this, but now she’s ready to make a life for herself on her own. It would be a fine character arc, though not something the Final Fantasy series has been wont to do. However, that’s obviously not the case here as there’s no indication whatsoever that Tifa considers this as an option for herself. Nojima hasn’t written this off ramp into her journey. For Tifa, they’ll either become a real family or they won’t. Since this is a story that is going to have a happy ending, so of course they will, even if there are a lot of bumps along the way.

Unfortunately, with the Compilation being the unwieldy beast that this is, this whole arc has to be pieced together across a number of different works:

Tifa asking herself if they’re a real family in CoT

Her greatest fear seemingly come to life when Cloud leaves at the end of CoT/beginning of AC

Tifa explicitly asking Cloud if the reason they can’t help each other is because they’re not a real family during their argument in AC. Notably, even though Cloud is at his lowest point, he doesn’t confirm her fear. Instead he says he that he can’t help anyone, not even his family. Instead, he indirectly confirms that yes he does think they’re a family, even if is a frustrating moment still in that he’s too scared to try to save it.

The ending of AC where we see a new photo of Cloud smiling surrounded by Tifa and the kids and the rest of the AVALANCHE, next to the earlier photo we had seen of the four of them where he was wearing a more dour expression.

The ending of The Kids Are All Right, where Cloud, Tifa, Denzel and Marlene meet with Evan, Kyrie and Vits - and Cloud offers, unsolicited, that even if they’re not related by blood, they’re a family.

The ending of DVD extra ‘Reminiscence of FFVII’ where Cloud takes the day off and asks Tifa to close the bar so they can spend time together as a family as Tifa had wanted to do early in CoT

Cloud fears he’ll fail his family. Tifa fears it’ll fall apart. Cloud retreats into himself, pushing others away. Tifa neglects herself, not being able to say what she needs to say. In Advent Children, Tifa finally voices her frustrations. It’s then that Cloud finally confronts his fears. Like in the OG, Cloud and Tifa’s conflicts and character arcs are two sides of the same coin, and it’s only by communicating with each other are they able to resolve it. Though with the Compilation being an inferior work, it’s much less satisfying this time around. Such is the problem when you’re writing towards a preordained outcome (Cloud and Sephiroth duking it once again) rather than letting the story develop organically.

Some may ask, why mention Aerith so much (Cloud growing distant after delivering flowers to the Forgotten City, Cloud finding Denzel at Aerith’s church) if they weren’t trying to perpetuate the LTD? Well, as explained above, Aerith had to be in Advent Children, and since CoT is the only place where we get any insight into Cloud’s psyche, it’s here where Nojima expands on that guilt.

Again, this is a story that requires conflict, and what better conflict than the specter of a love rival? Notably, despite us having access to Tifa’s thoughts and fears, she never explicitly associates Cloud’s behavior with him pining after Aerith. Though it’s fair to say this fear is implied, if unwarranted.

If Cloud had actually been pining after Aerith this whole time, we would not be seeing it all unfold through Tifa’s perspective. You can depict a romance without drawing attention to the injured third party. We’re seeing all of this from Tifa’s POV, because it’s about Tifa’s insecurities, not the great tragic romance between Cloud and Aerith. Honestly, another reason we see this from Tifa’s perspective is because it’s dramatically more interesting. Because she’s insecure, she (and we the reader) wonder if there’s something else going on. Meanwhile, from Cloud’s perspective it would be straightforward and redundant, given what we see in AC. He’s guilty over Aerith’s death and thinks he doesn’t deserve to be happy.

Not to mention, the first time we encounter Aerith in CoT, Tifa is the one breaking down at her grave while Cloud is the one comforting her. Are we supposed to believe that he just forgot he was in love with Aerith until he had to deliver flowers to the Forgotten City?

And Aerith doesn’t just serve as a romantic obstacle. She’s also a symbol of guilt and redemption for both Cloud and Tifa. Neither think they have the right to be happy after all that’s happened (Aerith’s death being a big part of this), and through Denzel, who Cloud finds at Aerith’s church, they both see a chance to atone.

I do want to address Case of Lifestream: White because it’s only time in the entire Compilation where I’ve asked myself — what are they trying to achieve here? Now, I’d rather drink bleach than start debating the translation of ‘koibito’ again, but I did think it was a strange choice to specify the romantic nature of Aerith’s love for Cloud. I suppose it could be a reference her obvious attraction to Cloud in the OG, though calling it love feels like a stretch.

But nothing else in CoLW really gives me pause. It might be a bit jarring to see how much of it is Aerith’s thoughts of Cloud, but it makes sense when you consider the context in which it’s meant to be consumed. Unlike Case of Tifa or Case of Denzel, CoLW isn’t meant to be read on its own. It’s a few scant paragraphs in direct conversation with Case of Lifestream: Black. In CoLB, Sephiroth talks about his plan to return and end the world or whatever, and how Cloud is instrumental to his plan. Each segment of CoLW mirrors the corresponding segment of CoLB. Thus, CoLW has to be about Aerith’s plan to stop Sephiroth and the role Cloud must play in that. In both of these stories, Cloud is the only named character. It doesn’t mean that thoughts of Cloud consume all of Aerith’s afterlife. Case of Lifestream is only a tiny sliver of the story, a halfassed way to explain why in Advent Children the world is ending again and why Cloud has to be at the center of it all.

Notably, there is absolutely nothing in CoLW about Cloud’s feelings for Aerith. Even if it’s just speculation on her part as we see Sephiroth speculate about Cloud’s reactions in CoLB. Aerith can see what’s going on in the real world, but she says nothing about Cloud’s actions. If Cloud is really pining after her, trying to find a way to be reunited with her, wouldn’t this be the ideal story to show such devotion?

But it’s not there, because not only does it not happen, but because this story is not about Aerith’s relationship with Cloud. It is about how Aerith needs to see and warn Cloud in order to stop Sephiroth. By the end of Advent Children, that goal is fulfilled. Cloud gets his forgiveness. Aerith gets to see him again and helps him stop Sephiroth. There’s no suggestion that either party wants more. We finally have the closure that the OG lacked, and at no point does it confirm that Cloud reciprocated Aerith’s romantic feelings, even though there were plenty of opportunities to do so.

I don’t really know what else people were expecting. Advent Children isn’t a romantic drama. There’s not going to be a moment where Cloud explicitly tells Tifa, ‘I’ve never loved Aerith. It’s only been you all along.” This is just simply not the kind of story it is.

Though one late scene practically serves this function. When Cloud “dies” and Aerith finds him in the Lifestream, if there were any lingering romantic feelings between the two of them, this would be a beautiful bittersweet reunion. Maybe something about how as much as they want to be together, it’s not his time yet. Instead, it’s almost played off as a joke. Cloud calls her ‘Mother’, and Zack is at Aerith’s side, joking about how Cloud has no place there. This would be the perfect opportunity to address the romantic connection between Cloud and Aerith, but instead, the film elides this completely. Instead, it’s a cute afterlife moment between Aerith and Zack, and functionally allows Cloud to go back to where he belongs, to Tifa and the kids. Whatever Cloud’s feelings for Aerith were before, it’s transformed into something else.

Crisis Core -- or how Aerith finally gets her love story

The other relevant part of the Compilation is Crisis Core, which I will now touch on briefly (or at least brief for me). In the OG, Zack Fair was more plot device than character. We knew he was important to Cloud — enough that Cloud would mistake Zack’s memories for his own -- we knew he was important to Aerith — enough that she is initially drawn to Cloud due to his similarities to Zack — yet the nature of these relationships is more ambiguous. Especially his relationship with Aerith. From the little we learn of their relationship, it could have been completely one-sided on her part, and Zack a total cad. At least that’s the implication she leaves us with in Gongaga. We get the sense that she might not be the most reliable narrator on this point (why bring up an ex so often, unsolicited, if it wasn’t anything serious?) but the OG never confirms this either way.

Crisis Core clears this up completely. Not only is Zack portrayed as the Capital H Hero of his own game, but his relationships with Cloud and Aerith are two of the most important in the game. In fact, they are the basis for his heroic sacrifice at the game’s end: he dies trying to save Cloud’s life; he dies trying to return to Aerith.

Zack’s relationship with Aerith is a major subplot of the game. Not only that, but the details of said relationship completely recontextualizes what we know about the Aerith we see in the OG. Many of Aerith’s most iconic traits (wearing pink, selling flowers) are a direct product of this relationship, and more importantly, so many of the hallmarks of her early relationship with Cloud (him falling through her church, one date as a reward, a conversation in the playground) are a direct echo of her relationship with Zack.

A casual fling this was not. Aerith’s relationship with Zack made a deep impact on the character we see in the OG and clearly colored her interactions with Cloud throughout.

Crisis Core is telling Zack’s story, and Tifa is a fairly minor supporting character, yet it still finds the time to expand upon Cloud and Tifa’s relationship. Through their interactions with Zack, we learn just how much they were on each others’ minds during this time, and how they were both too shy to own up to these feelings. We also get a brief expansion on the moment Cloud finds Tifa injured in the reactor.

Meanwhile, given the point we are in the story’s chronology, Cloud and Aerith are completely oblivious of each other’s existence.

One may try to argue that none of this matters since all of this is in the past. While this argument might hold water if we arguing about real lives in the real world, FF7 is a work of fiction. Its creators decided that these would be events we would see, and that Zack would be the lens through which we’d see them. Crisis Core is not the totality of these characters’ lives prior to the event of the OG. Rather, it consists of moments that enhance and expand upon our understanding of the original work. We learn the full extent of Hojo’s experimentation and the Jenova project; we learn that Sephiroth was actually a fairly normal guy before he was driven insane when he uncovers the circumstances of his birth. We learn that Aerith was a completely different person before she met Zack, and their relationship had a profound impact on her character.

A prequel is not made to contradict the original work, but what it can do is recontexualize the story we already know and add a layer of nuance that may have not been obvious before. Thus, Sephiroth is transformed from a scary villain into a tragic figure who could have been a hero were it not for Hojo’s experiments. Aerith’s behavior too invites reinterpretation. What once seemed flirty and perhaps overtly forward now looks like the tragic attempts of a woman trying to recapture a lost love.

If Cloud and Aerith were meant to be the official couple of the Compilation of FF7, you absolutely would not be spending so much time depicting two relationships that will be moot by the time we get to the original work. You especially would not depict Zack and Aerith’s relationship in a way that makes Aerith’s relationship with Cloud look like a copy of the moments she had with her ex.

Additionally, with Zack’s relationship with Angeal, we can see, that within the universe of FF7, a protagonist being devastated over the death of a beloved comrade isn’t something that’s inherently romantic. Neither is it romantic for said dead comrade to lend a helping hand from the beyond.

SE would also expect some people to play Crisis Core before the OG. If Cloud and Aerith are the intended endgame couple, then SE would be asking the player to root for a guy to pursue the girlfriend of the man who gave his life for him. The same man who died trying to reunite with her. This is to say nothing of Cloud’s treatment of Tifa in this scenario. How could this possibly be the intent for their most popular protagonist in the most popular entry of their most popular franchise?

What Crisis Core instead offers is something for fans of Aerith who may be disappointed that she was robbed of a great romance by her death. Well, she now gets that epic, tragic romance. Only it’s with Zack, not Cloud.

If SE intended for Cloud and Aerith to be the official couple of FF7, neither Zack nor Tifa would exist. They would not spend so much time developing Zack and Tifa into the multi-dimensional characters they are, only to be treated as nothing more than collateral damage in the wake of Cloud and Aerith’s great love. No, this is a Final Fantasy. SE want their main characters to have something of a happy ending after all of the tribulations they face. Cloud and Tifa find theirs in life. Zack and Aerith, as the ending of AC suggests, find theirs in death.

Cloud and Aerith’s relationship isn’t a threat to the Zack/Aerith and Cloud/Tifa endgame, nor is it a mere obstacle. Rather, it’s a relationship that actually deepens and strengthens the other two. Aerith is explicitly searching for her first love in Cloud, revealing just how deep her feelings for Zack ran. Cloud gets to live out his heroic SOLDIER fantasy with Aerith, a fantasy he created just to impress Tifa.

There are moments between Cloud and Aerith that may seem romantic when taken on its own, but viewed within the context of the whole narrative, ultimately reveal that they aren’t quite right for each other, and in each other, they’re actually searching for someone else.

This quadrangular dynamic reminds me a bit of one of my favorite classic films, The Philadelphia Story. (Spoilers for a film that came out in 1940 ahead) — The single most romantic scene in the film is between Jimmy Stewart’s and Katherine Hepburn’s characters, yet they’re not the ones who end up together. Even as their passions run, as the music swells, and we want them to end up together, we realize that they’re not quite right for each other. We know that it won’t work out.

More relevantly, we know this is true due to the existence of Cary Grant’s and Ruth Hussey’s characters, who are shown to carry a torch for Hepburn and Stewart, respectively. Grant and Hussey are well-developed and sympathetic characters. With the film being the top grossing film of the year, and made during the Code era, it’s about as “clean” of a narrative as you can get. There’s no way Grant and Hussey would be given such prominent roles just to be left heartbroken and in the cold by the film’s end.

Hepburn’s character (Tracy) pretty much sums it herself after some hijinks lead to a last minute proposal from Stewart’s character (Mike):

Mike: Will you marry me, Tracy?

Tracy: No, Mike. Thanks, but hmm-mm. Nope.

Mike: l've never asked a girl to marry me. l've avoided it. But you've got me all confused now. Why not?

Tracy: Because l don't think Liz [Hussey’s character] would like it...and l'm not sure you would...and l'm even a little doubtful about myself. But l am beholden to you, Mike. l'm most beholden.

Despite the fact that the film spends more time developing Hepburn and Stewart’s relationship than theirs with their endgame partners, it’s still such a satisfying ending. That’s because, even at the peak of their romance, we can see how Stewart needs someone like Hussey to ground his passionate impulses, and how Hepburn needs Grant, someone who won’t put her on a pedestal like everyone else. Hepburn and Stewart’s is a relationship that might feel right in the moment, but doesn’t quite work in the light of day.

I don’t think Cloud and Aerith share a moment that is nearly as romantic in FF7, but the same principle applies. What may seem romantic in the moment actually reveals how they’re right for someone else.

Even if Aerith lives and Cloud decides to pursue a relationship with her, it’s not going to be all puppies and roses ahead for them. Aerith would need to disentangle her feelings for Zack from her attraction to Cloud, and Cloud would still need to confront his feelings for Tifa, which were his main motivator for nearly half his life, before they can even start to build something real. This is messy work, good fodder for a prestige cable drama or an Oscar-baity indie film, but it has no place in a Final Fantasy. There simply isn’t the time. Not when the question on most players’ minds isn’t ‘Cloud does love?’ but ‘How the hell are they going to stop that madman and his Meteor that’s about to destroy the world?’

With Zerith’s depiction in Crisis Core, there’s a sort of bittersweet poetry in how the two relationships rhyme but can’t actually coexist. It is only because Zack is trying to return to Midgar to see Aerith that Cloud is able to reunite with Tifa, and the OG begins in earnest. In another world, Zack and Aerith would be the hero and heroine who saved the world and lived to tell the tale. They are much more the traditional archetypes - Zack the super-powered warrior who wants to be a Capital-H Hero, and Aerith, the last of her kind who reluctantly accepts her fate. Compared to these two, Cloud and Tifa aren’t nearly so special, nor their goals so lofty and noble. Cloud, after all, was too weak to even get into SOLDIER, and only wanted to be one, not for some greater good, but to impress the girl he liked. Tifa has no special abilities, merely learning martial arts when she grew wise enough to not wait around for a hero. On the surface, Cloud and Tifa are made of frailer stuff, and yet by luck or by fate, they’re the ones who cheat death time and time again, and manage to save the world, whereas the ones who should have the role, are prematurely struck down before they can finish the job. Cloud and Tifa fulfill the roles that they never asked for, that they may not be particularly suited for, in Zack and Aerith’s stead. There’s a burden and a beauty to it. Cloud and Tifa can live because Zack and Aerith did not.

All of this nuance is lost if you think Cloud and Aerith are meant to be the endgame couple. Instead, you have a pair succumbing to their basest desires, regardless of the selfless sacrifices their other potential paramours made for their sake. Zack and Tifa, and their respective relationships with Aerith and Cloud, are flattened into mere romantic obstacles. The heart wants what it wants, some may argue. While that may be true in real life, that is not necessarily the case in a work of fiction, especially not a Final Fantasy. The other canon Final Fantasy couples could certainly have had previous romantic relationships, but unless they have direct relevance to the their character arcs (e.g., Rachel to Locke), the games do not draw attention to them because they would be a distraction from the romance they are trying to tell. They’ve certainly never spent the amount of real estate FF7 spends in depicting Cloud/Tifa and Zack/Aerith’s relationships.

At last…the Remake, and somehow this essay isn’t even close to being over

Finally, we come to the Remake. With the technological advancements made in the last 23 years and the sheer amount of hours they’re devoting to just the Midgar section this time around, you can almost look at the OG as an outline and the Remake as the final draft. With the OG being overly reliant on text to do its storytelling, and the Remake having subtle facial expressions and a slew of cinematic techniques at its disposal, you might almost consider it an adaptation from a literary medium to a visual one. Our discussions are no longer limited to just what the characters are saying, but what they are doing, and even more importantly, how the game presents those actions. When does the game want us to pay attention? And what does it want us to pay attention to?

Unlike most outlines, which are read by a small handful of execs, SE has 23 years worth of reactions from the general public to gauge what works and what doesn’t work, what caused confusion, and what could be clarified. While FF7 is not a romance, the LTD remains a hot topic among a small but vocal part of the fanbase. It certainly is an area that could do with some clarifying in the Remake.

Since the Remake is not telling a new story, but rather retelling an existing story that has been in the public consciousness for over two decades, certain aspects that were treated as “twists” in the OG no longer have that same element of surprise, and would need to approached differently. For example, in the Midgar section of the OG, Shinra is treated as the main antagonist throughout. It’s only when we get to the top of the Shinra tower that Sephiroth is revealed as the real villain. Anyone with even a passing of knowledge of FF7 would be aware of Sephiroth so trying to play it off like a surprise in the Remake would be terribly anticlimactic. Thus, Sephiroth appears as early as Ch. 2 to haunt Cloud and the player throughout.

Likewise, many players who’ve never even touched the OG are probably aware that Aerith dies, thus her death can no longer be played for shock. While SE would still want the player to grow attached to Aerith so that her death has an emotional impact, there are diminishing returns to misdirecting the player about her fate, at least not in the same way it was done in the OG.

How do these considerations affect the how the LTD is depicted in the Remake? For the two of the biggest twists in the OG to land in the Remake — Aerith’s death and Cloud’s true identity in the Lifestream — the game needs to establish:

Aerith’s attraction to Cloud, specifically due to his similarities to Zack. This never needs to go past an initial attraction for the player to understand that the man whose memory Cloud was “borrowing” is Zack. Aerith’s feelings for Cloud can evolve into something platonic or even maternal by her end without the reveal in the Lifestream losing any impact.

Cloud’s love for Tifa. For the Lifestream sequence to land with an “Ooooh!” rather than a “Huh!?!?”, the Remake will need to establish that Cloud’s feelings for Tifa were strong enough to 1) motivate him to try to join SOLDIER in the first place 2) incentivize him to adopt a false persona because he fears that he isn’t the man she wants him to be 3) call him back to consciousness from Make poisoning twice 4) help him put his mind back together and find his true self. That’s a lot of story riding on one guy’s feelings!

The player’s love for Aerith so that her death will hurt. This can be done by making them invested in Aerith as a character by her own right, but also extends to the relationships she has with the other characters (not only Cloud).

What is not necessary is establishing Cloud’s romantic feelings for Aerith. Now, would their doomed romance make her death hurt even more? Sure, but it could work just as well if Cloud if is losing a dear friend and ally, not a lover. Not to mention, her death also cuts short her relationships with Tifa, Barret, Red XII, etc. Bulking those relationships up prior to her death, would also make her loss more palpable. If anything, establishing Cloud’s romantic feelings for Aerith would actually undermine the game’s other big twist. The game needs you to believe that Cloud’s feelings for Tifa were strong enough to drive his entire hero’s journey. If Cloud is shown falling in love with another woman in the span of weeks if not mere days, then the Lifestream scene would be much harder to swallow.

Cloud wavering between the two women made sense in the OG because the main way for the player to get to know Aerith was through her interactions with Cloud. That is no longer the case in the Remake. Cloud is still the protagonist, and the player character for the vast majority of the game, but there are natural ways for the player to get to know Aerith outside of her dialogue exchanges with Cloud. Unless SE considers the LTD an integral part of FF7’s DNA, then for the sake of story clarity, the LTD doesn’t need to exist.

How then does the Remake clarify things?

I’m not going go through every single change in the Remake — there are far too many of them, and they’ve been documented elsewhere. Most of the changes are expansions or adaptations (what might make sense for super-deformed chibis would look silly for realistic characters, e.g., Cloud rolling barrels in the Church has now become him climbing across the roof support). What is expanded and how it’s adapted can be telling, but what is more interesting are the additions and removals. Not just for what takes place in the scenes themselves, but how their addition or removal changes our understanding of the narrative as a whole vis-a-vis the story we know from the OG.

Notably, one of the features that is not expanded upon, but rather diminished, is player choice. In the OG, the player had a slew of dialogue options to choose from, especially during the Midgar portion of the game. Not only did it determine which character would go on a date with Cloud at the Gold Saucer, but it also made the player identify with Cloud since they’re largely determining his personality during this stage. Despite the technological advances that have made this level of optionality the norm in AAA games, the Remake gives the player far fewer non-gameplay related choices, and only really the illusion of choice as a nod to the OG, but they don’t affect the story of the game in any meaningful way. You get a slightly different conversation depending on the choice, but you have to buy the Flower, Tifa has to make you a drink.

So much of what fueled the LTD in the OG came from this mechanic, which is now largely absent in the Remake. Almost every instance where there was a dialogue branch in the OG has become a single, canon scenario in the Remake that favors Tifa (e.g., having the choice of giving the flower to Tifa or Marlene in the OG, to Cloud giving the flower to Tifa in the Remake). Similarly, for the only meaningful choice you make in the Remake — picking Tifa or Aerith in the sewers — Cloud is now equidistant to both girls, whereas in the OG, his starting point was much closer to Aerith. In the OG, player choice allowed you to largely determine Cloud’s personality, and the girl he favored — and seemingly encouraged you to choose Aerith in many instances. In the Remake, Cloud is now his own character, not who the player wants him to be. And this Cloud, well, he sure seems to have a thing for Tifa.

In fact, one of the first changes in the Remake is the addition of Jessie asking Cloud about his relationship with Tifa, and Cloud’s brief flashback to their childhood together. In the OG, Tifa isn’t mentioned at all during the first reactor mission, and we don’t see her until we get to Sector 7.

Not only does this scene reveal Tifa’s importance to Cloud much earlier on than in the OG, but it sets up a sort of frame of reference that colors Cloud’s subsequent interactions. Even as Jessie kind of flirts with him throughout the reactor mission, even with his chance meeting Aerith in Sector 8, in the back of your mind, you might be thinking — wait what about his relationship with this Tifa character? What if he’s already spoken for?

Think about how this plays out in the OG. Jessie is pretty much a non-entity, and Cloud has his meet-cute with the flower girl before we’re even aware that Tifa exists. It’s hard to get too invested in his interactions with Tifa, when you know he has to meet the flower girl again, and you’re waiting for that moment, because that’s when the game will start in earnest.

After chapter 1 of the Remake, a new player may be asking — who is this Tifa person, and, echoing Jessie’s question, what kind of relationship does she have with Cloud? It’s a question that’s repeated when Barret mentions her before they set the bomb, and again when Barret specifies Seventh Heaven is where Tifa works — and the game zooms in on Cloud’s face — when they arrive in Sector 7.

It’s when we finally meet her at Seventh Heaven in Ch. 3 that we feel, ah now, this game has finally begun.

It’s also interesting how inorganically this question is introduced in the Remake. Up until that moment, the dialogue and Cloud are all business. Then, as they’re waiting for the gate to open, Jessie asks about Tifa completely out of the blue, and Cloud, all of a sudden, is at a lost for words, and has the first of many flashbacks. That this moment is a bit incongruous shows the effort SE made to establish Tifa’s importance to the game and to Cloud early on.

One of the biggest changes in the Remake is the addition of the events in Ch. 3 and 4. Unlike what happens in Ch. 18, Ch. 3 and 4 feel like such a natural extension of the OG’s story that many players may not even realize that SE has added an whole day’s and night’s worth of events to the OG’s story. While not a drastic change, it does reshape our understanding of subsequent events in the story, namely Cloud’s time spent alone with Aerith.

In the OG, we rush from one reactor mission to the next, with no real time to explore Cloud’s character or his relationships with any of the other characters in between. When he crashes through the church, he gets a bit of a breather. We see a different side of him with Aerith. Since we have nothing else to compare it to, many might assume that his relationship with Aerith is special. That she brings something out of him that no one else can.

That is no longer the case in the Remake. While Cloud’s time in Sector 5 with Aerith remains largely unchanged though greatly expanded, it no longer feels “special.” So many of the beats that seemed exclusive to his relationship with Aerith in the OG, we’ve now already seen play out with both Tifa and the other members of AVALANCHE long before he meets Aerith.

Cloud tells the flowers to listen to Aerith; he’s told Tifa he’s listening if she wants to talk; told Bigg’s he wants to hear the story of Jessie’s dad. Cloud offers to walk Aerith back home; he offered the same to Wedge. Cloud smiles at Aerith; he’s already smiled at Tifa and AVALANCHE a number of times.

Now, I’m under no illusion that SE added these chapters solely to diminish Aerith’s importance to Cloud (other than the obvious goal of making the game longer, I imagine they wanted the player to spend more time in Sector 7 and more time with the other AVALANCHE members so that the collapse of the Pillar and their deaths have more weight), but they certainly must have realized that this would be one effect. If pushing Cloud/Aerith’s romance had been a goal with the Remake, this would be a scenario they would try to avoid. Notably, the other place where time has been added - the night in the Underground Shinra Lab, and the day helping other people out around the slums — are also periods of time when Aerith is absent.

Home Sweet Slums vs. Budding Bodyguard

Since most of the events in Ch. 3 were invented for the Remake, and thus we have nothing in the OG to compare it to (except to say that something is probably better than nothing), I thought it would be more interesting to compare it to Ch. 8. Structurally, they are nearly identical — Cloud doing sidequests around the Sectors with one of the girls as his guide. Extra bits of dialogue the more sidequests you complete, with an optional story event if you do them all. Do Cloud’s relationships with each girl progress the same way in both chapters? Is the Remake just Final Waifu Simulator 2020 or are they distinct, reflecting their respective roles in the story as a whole?

A lot of what the player takes away from these chapters is going to be pretty subjective (Is he annoyed with her or is he playing hard to get), yet the vibes of the two chapters are quite different. This is because in Ch. 3, the player is getting to know Tifa through her relationship with Cloud; in Ch. 8; the player is getting to know Aerith as a character on her own.

What do I mean by this? Let’s take Cloud’s initial introduction into each Sector. In Ch. 3, it’s a straight shot from Seventh Heaven to Stargazer Heights punctuated by a brief conversation where Tifa asks Cloud about the mission he was just on. We don’t learn anything new about Tifa’s character here. Instead we hear Cloud recount the mission we already saw play out in detail in Ch. 1 But it’s through this conversation that we get a glimpse of Cloud and Tifa’s relationship — unlike the reticent jerk he was with Avalanche, this Cloud is much more responsive and even tries to reassure her in his own stilted way. We also know that they have enough of a past together that Tifa can categorize him as “not a people person” — an assessment to which Cloud agrees. Slowly, we’re getting an answer to the question Jessie posed in Ch. 1 — just what kind of relationship does Cloud have with Tifa?

In Ch. 8, Aerith leads Cloud on a roundabout way through Sector 5, and stops, unprompted, to talk about her experiences helping at the restaurant, helping out the doctor, and helping with the orphans at the Leaf House. It’s not so much a conversation as a monologue. Cloud isn’t the one who inquires about these relationships, and more jarringly, he doesn’t respond until Aerith directly asks him a question (interestingly enough, it’s about the flower she gave him…which he then gave to Tifa). Here, the game is allowing the player to learn more about the kind of person Aerith is. Cloud is also learning about Aerith at the same time, but with his non-reaction, either the game itself is indifferent to Cloud’s feelings towards Aerith or it is deliberately trying to portray Cloud’s indifference to Aerith.

The optional story event you can see in each chapter after completing all the side quests is also telling. In Ch. 3, “Alone at Last” is almost explicitly about Cloud and Tifa’s relationship. It’s bookended by two brief scenes between Marle and Cloud — the first in which she lectures him about how he should treat Tifa almost like an overprotective in-law, the second after they return downstairs and Marle awards Cloud with an accessory “imbued with the fervent desire to be by one’s side for eternity” after he makes Tifa smile. In between, Cloud and Tifa chat alone in her room. Tifa finally gets a chance to ask Cloud about his past and they plan a little date to celebrate their reunion. There is also at least the suggestion that Cloud was expecting something else when Tifa asked him to her room.

In Ch. 8’s “The Language of Flowers,” Cloud and Aerith’s relationship is certainly part of the story — unlike earlier in the chapter, Cloud actually asks Aerith about what she’s doing and even supports her by talking to the flowers too, but the other main objective of this much briefer scene is to show Aerith’s relationship with the flowers and of her mysterious Cetra powers (though we don’t know about her ancestry just yet). Like a lot of Aerith’s dialogue, there’s a lot of foreshadowing and foreboding in her words. If anything, it’s almost as if Cloud is playing the Marle role to the flowers, as an audience surrogate to ask Aerith about her relationship with the flowers so that she can explain. Also, there’s no in-game reward that suggests what the scene was really about.

If there’s any confusion about what’s going on here, just compare their titles “Alone At Last” vs. “The Language of Flowers.”

I’ll try not to bring my personal feelings into this, but there’s just something so much more satisfying about the construction of Ch. 3. This is some real storytelling 101 shit, but I think a lot of it due to just how much set up and payoff there is, and how almost all of said payoff deepens our understanding of Cloud and Tifa’s relationship:

Marle: Cloud meets Tifa’s overprotective landlady towards the beginning of the chapter. She is dubious of his character and his relationship with TIfa. This impression does not change the second time they meet even though Tifa herself is there to mediate. It’s only towards the end of the chapter, after all the sidequests are complete, that this tension is resolved. Marle gives Cloud a lecture about how he should be treating Tifa, which he seems to take to heart. And Cloud finally earns Marle’s begrudging approval after he emerges from their rooms with a chipper-looking Tifa in tow.

Their past: For their first in-game interaction, Cloud casually brings up that fact that it’s been “Five years” since they’ve last, which seem to throw Tifa off a bit. As they’re replacing filters, Cloud asks Tifa what she’s been up to in the time since they’ve been apart, and Tifa quickly changes the subject. Tifa tries to ask Cloud about his life “after he left the village,” at the Neighborhood Watch HQ, and this time he’s the one who seems to be avoiding the subject. It’s only after all the Ch. 3 sidequests are complete, and they're alone in her room that Tifa finally gets the chance to ask her question. A question which Cloud still doesn’t entirely answer. This question remains unresolved, and anyone’s played the OG will know that it will remain unresolved for some time yet, as it is THE question of Cloud’s story as a whole.

The lessons: Tifa starts spouting off some lessons for life in the slums as she brings Cloud around the town, though it’s unclear if Cloud is paying attention or taking them to heart. After completing the first sidequest, Cloud repeats one of these sayings back to her, confirming that he’s been listening all along. By the end of the chapter, Cloud is repeating these lessons to himself, even when Tifa isn’t around. These lessons extend beyond this chapter, with Cloud being a real teacher’s pet, asking Tifa “Is this a lesson” in Ch. 10 once they reunite.

The drink: When Cloud first arrives at Seventh Heaven, Tifa plays hostess and asks him if he wants anything, but it seems he’s only interested in his money. After exploring the sector a bit, Tifa again tries to play the role of cheery bartender, offering to make him a cocktail at the bar, but Cloud sees through this facade, and they carry on. Finally, after the day’s work is done, to tide Cloud over while she’s meeting with AVALANCHE, Tifa finally gets the chance to make him a drink. No matter, which dialogue option the player chooses, Tifa and Cloud fall into the roles of flirty bartender and patron quite easily. Who would have thought this was possible from the guy we met in Ch. 1?

This dynamic is largely absent in Ch. 8, except perhaps exploring Aerith’s relationship with the flowers, which “pays off” in the “Language of Flowers” event, but again, that scene is primarily about Aerith’s character rather than her relationship with Cloud. The orphans and the Leaf House are a throughline of the chapter, but they are merely present. There’s no clear progression here as was the case with in Ch. 3. Sure, the kids admire Cloud quite a bit after he saves them, but it’s not like they were dubious of his presence before. They barely paid attention to him. In terms of the impact the kids have on Cloud’s relationship with Aerith, there isn’t much at all. Certainly nothing like the role Marle plays in developing his relationship with Tifa.

The thing is, there are plenty of moments that could have been set ups, only there’s no real follow through. Aerith introduces Cloud around town as her bodyguard, and some people like the Doctor express dubiousness of his ability to do the job, but even after we spend a whole day fighting off monsters, and defeating Rude, there’s no payoff. Not even a throwaway “Wow, great job bodyguarding” comment. Same with the whole “one date” reward. Other than a quick reference on the way to Sector 5, and Aerith threatening to reveal the deal to cajole Cloud into helping her gather flowers, it’s never brought up again, in this chapter, or the rest of the game.

Aerith also makes a big stink about Cloud taking the time to enjoy Elmyra’s cooking. This is after Cloud is excluded from AVALANCHE’s celebration in Seventh Heaven and after he misses out on Jessie’s mom’s “Midgar Special” with Biggs and Wedge. So this could have been have been the set up to Cloud finally getting to experience a nice, domestic moment where he feels like he’s part of a family. And this dinner does happen! Only…the Remake skips over it entirely. Which is quite a strange choice considering that almost every other waking moment of Cloud’s time in Midgar has been depicted in excruciating detail. SE has decided that either whatever happened in this dinner between these three characters is irrelevant to the story they’re trying to tell, or they’ve deliberately excluded this scene from the game so that the player wouldn’t get any wrong ideas from it (e.g., that Cloud is starting to feel at home with Aerith).

Speaking of home, the Odd Jobs in Ch. 3 feel a bit more meaningful outside of just the gameplay-related rewards because they’re a way for Cloud to improve his reputation as he considers building a life for himself in Sector 7. This intent is implicit as Tifa imparts upon him the life lessons for surviving the slums, and then explicit, when Tifa asks him if he’s going to “stick around a little longer” outside of Seventh Heaven and he answers maybe. (It is later confirmed when Cloud and Tifa converse in his room in Ch. 4 after he remembers their promise).

Despite Aerith’s endeavors to extend their time together, there’s no indication that Cloud is planning to put down roots in Sector 5, or even return. Not even after doing all the Odd Jobs. If anything, it’s just the opposite — after 3 Odd Jobs, Aerith, kind of jokingly tells Cloud “don’t think you can rely on me forever.” This is a line that has a deeper meaning for anyone who knows Aerith’s fate in the OG, but Cloud seems totally fine with the outcome. Similarly, at the end of the Chapter 8, Elmyra asks Cloud to leave and never speak to Aerith again — a request to which he readily agrees.

Adding to the different vibes of the Chapters are the musical themes that play in the background. In Ch. 3, it’s the “Main Theme of VII”, followed by “On Our Way” — two tracks that instantly recall the OG. While the Main Theme is a bit melancholy, it's also familiar. It feels like home. In Ch. 8, we have an instrumental version of ‘Hollow’ - the new theme written for the Remake. While, it’s a lovely piece, it’s unfamiliar and honestly as a bit anxiety inducing (as is the intent).

(A quick aside to address the argument that this proves ‘Hollow’ is about Cloud’s feelings for Aerith:

Which of course doesn’t make any damn sense because he hasn’t even lost Aerith at this point the story. Even if you want to argue that there is so timey-wimey stuff going on and the whole purpose of the Remake is to rewrite the timeline so that Cloud doesn’t lose Aerith around — shouldn’t there be evidence of this desire outside of just the background music? Perhaps, in Cloud’s actions during the Chapter which the song plays — shouldn’t he dread being parted from her, shouldn’t he be the one trying to extend their time together? Instead, he’s willing to let her go quite easily.

The more likely explanation as to why “Hollow” plays in Ch. 8 is that since the “Main Theme of FFVII” already plays in Ch. 3, the other “main theme” written for the Remake is going to play in the other chapter with a pseudo-open world vibe. If you’re going to say “Hollow” is about Cloud’s feelings for Aerith then you’d have to accept that the Main Theme of the entire series is about Cloud’s feelings for Tifa, which would actually make a bit more sense given that is practically Cloud’s entire character arc.)

Both chapters contain a scripted battle that must be completed before the chapter can end. They both contain a shot where Cloud fights side by side with each of the girls.

Here, Cloud and Tifa are both in focus during the entirety of this shot.

Here, the focus pulls away from Cloud the moment Aerith enters the frame.

I doubt the developers expected most players to notice this particular technique, but it reflects the subtle differences in the way these two relationships are portrayed. By the end of Ch. 3, Cloud and Tifa are acting as one unit. By the end of Ch. 8, even when they��re together, Cloud and Aerith are still apart.

A brief (lol) overview of some meaningful changes from the OG

One of the most significant changes in the Sector 7 chapters is how The Promise flashback is depicted. In the OG, Tifa is the one who has to remind Cloud of the Promise, in a rather pushy way, and whether Cloud chooses to join the next mission to fulfill his promise to her or because Barret is giving him a raise feels a bit more ambiguous.

In the Remake, the Promise has it’s own little mini-arc. It’s first brought up at the end of Ch. 3 when Cloud talks to Tifa about her anxieties about the upcoming mission. Tifa subtly references the Promise by mentioning that she’s “in a pitch” — a reference that goes over Cloud’s head. It’s only in Ch. 4, in the middle of a mission with Biggs and Wedge, where Tifa is no where in sight, that a random building fan reminds him of the Nibelheim water tower and the Promise he made to Tifa there. There’s also another brief flashback to that earlier moment in the bar when Tifa mentions she’s in a “pinch.” Again, the placement of this particular flashback at this particular moment feels almost jarring. And the flashback to the scene in the bar — a flashback to a scene we’ve already seen play out in-game — is the only one of its kind in the Remake. SE went out of the way to show that this particular moment is very important to Cloud and the game as whole. It’s when Cloud returns to his room, and Tifa asks him if he’s planning to stay in Midgar, that this mini-arc is finally complete. He brings up the Promise on his own, and makes it explicit that the reason he’s staying is for her. It’s to fulfill his Promise to her, not for money or for AVALANCHE — at this point, he’s not even supposed to be going on the next mission.

The Reactor 5 chapters are greatly expanded, but there aren’t really any substantive changes other than the addition of the rather intimate train roll scene between and Cloud and Tifa, which adds nothing to the story except to establish how horny they are for each other. We know this is the case, of course, because if you go out of your way to make Cloud look like an incompetent idiot and let the timer run out, you can avoid this scene altogether. But even in that alternate scene, Cloud’s concern for Tifa is crystal clear.

Ch. 8 also plays out quite similarly to the OG for the most part, though Cloud’s banter with Aerith on the rooftops doesn’t feel all that special since we’ve already seen him do the same with Tifa, Barret and the rest of AVALANCHE. The rooftops is the first place Cloud laughs in the OG. In the Remake, while Cloud might not have straight out laughed before, he’s certainly smiled quite a bit in the preceding chapters. Also, with the addition of voice acting and realistic facial expressions, that “laughter” in the Remake comes off much more sarcastic than genuine.

It’s also notable that in the Remake, Cloud vocally protests almost every time Aerith tries to extend their time together. In the OG, Cloud says nothing in these moments, which the player could reasonably interpret as assent.

One major change in the Remake is how Aerith learns of Tifa’s existence. In the OG, Cloud mentions that he wants to go back to Tifa’s bar, prompting Aerith to ask him about his relationship with her. In the Remake, Cloud calls Tifa’s name after having a random flashback of Child Tifa as he’s walking along with some kids. Again the insertion of said flashback is a bit jarring, prompting Aerith to understandably ask Cloud about just who this Tifa is. In the OG, this exchange served to show Aerith’s jealousy and her interest in Cloud. In the Remake, it’s all about Cloud’s feelings for Tifa and his inability to articulate them. As for Aerith, I suppose you can still read her reaction as jealous, though simple curiosity is a perfectly reasonable way to read it too. It plays out quite similarly to Aerith asking Cloud about who he gave the flower to. Her follow ups seem indicate that she’s merely curious about who this recipient might be rather than showing that she’s upset/jealous of the fact that said person exists.

For the collapsed tunnel segment, the Remake adds the recurring bit of Aerith and Cloud trying to successfully complete a high-five. While this is certainly a way to show them getting closer, it’s about least intimate way that SE could have done so. Just think about the alternatives — you could have Cloud and Aerith sharing brief tidbits of their lives after each mechanical arm, you could have them trying to reach for each other’s hand. Instead, SE chose an action that is we’ve seen performed between a number of different platonic buddies, and an action that Aerith immediately performs with Tifa upon meeting her. Not to mention, even while they are technically getting closer, Cloud still rejects (or at least tries to) Aerith’s invitations to extend their time together twice — at the fire and at the playground.

One aspect from these two Chapters that does has plenty of set up and a satisfying payoff is Aerith’s interest in Cloud’s SOLDIER background. You have the weirdness of Aerith already knowing that Cloud was in SOLDIER without him mentioning it first, followed by Elmyra’s antipathy towards SOLDIERs in general, not to mention Aerith actively fishing for information about Cloud’s time in SOLDIER. (For players who’ve played Crisis Core, the reason for her behavior is even more obvious, with her “one date” gesture mirroring Zack’s, and her line to Cloud in front of the tunnel a near duplicate of what she says to Zack — at least in the original Japanese).

Finally, at the playground, it’s revealed that the reason for all this weirdness is because Aerith’s first love was also a SOLDIER who was the same rank as Cloud. Unlike in the OG, Cloud does not exhibit any potential jealousy by asking about the nature of her relationship, and Aerith doesn’t try to play it off by dismissing the seriousness. In fact, with the emotional nuance we can now see on her face, we can understand the depth of her feelings even if she cannot articulate them.

This is the first scene in the Remake where Cloud and Aerith have a genuine conversation. Thus, finally, Cloud expresses some hesitation before he leaves her — and as far as he knows, this could be the last time they see each other. You can interpret this hesitation as romantic longing or it could just as easily be Cloud being a bit sad to part from a new friend. Regardless, it’s notable that scene is preceded by one where Aerith is talking about her first love who she clearly isn’t over, and followed by a scene where Cloud sprints across the screen, without a backwards glance at Aerith, after seeing a glimpse of Tifa through a tiny window in a Chocobo cart that’s about a hundred yards away.

The Wall Market segment in the Remake is quite explicitly about Cloud’s desire to save Tifa. In the OG, Aerith has no trouble getting into Corneo’s mansion on her own, so I can see how someone could misinterpret Cloud going through all the effort to dress as a woman to protect Aerith from the Don’s wiles (though of course, you would need to ask, why they trying to infiltrate the mansion in the first place?). In the Remake, Cloud has to go through herculean efforts to even get Aerith in front of the Don. Everyone who is aware of Cloud’s cause, from Sam to Leslie to Johnny to Andrea to Aerith herself, comments on how hard he’s working to save Tifa and how important she must be to him for him to do so. In case there’s any confusion, the Remake also includes a scene where Cloud is prepared to bust into the mansion on his own, leaving Aerith to fend for herself, after Johnny comes with news that Tifa is in trouble.

Both Cloud and Aerith get big dress reveals in the Remake. If you get Aerith’s best dress, Cloud’s reaction can certainly be read as one of attraction, but since the game continues on the same regardless of which dress you get, it’s not meant to mark a shift in Cloud and Aerith’s relationship. Rather, it’s a reward for the player for completing however many side quests in Ch. 8, especially since the Remake incentives the player to get every dress and thus see all of Cloud’s reactions by making it a Trophy and including it in the play log.

A significant and very welcome change from the OG to the Remake is Tifa and Aerith’s relationship dynamic. In the OG, the girls’ first meeting in Corneo’s mansion starts with them fighting over Cloud (by pretending not to fight over Cloud). In the Remake, the sequence of events is reversed so that it starts off with Cloud’s reunion with Tifa (again emphasizing that the whole purpose of the infiltration is because Cloud wants to save Tifa). Then when Aerith wakes, she’s absolutely thrilled to make Tifa’s acquaintance, hardly acknowledging Cloud at all. Tifa is understandably more wary at first, but once they start working together, they become fast friends.

Also interesting is that from the moment Aerith and Tifa meet, almost every instance where Cloud could be shown worrying about Aerith or trying to comfort Aerith is given to Tifa instead. In the OG, it’s Cloud who frets about Aerith getting involved in the plot to question the Don, and regrets getting her mixed up in everything once they land in the sewers. In the Remake, those very same reservations are expressed by Tifa instead. Tifa is the one who saves Aerith when the platform collapses in the sewer. Tifa is the one who emotionally comforts Aerith after they’re separated in the train graveyard. (Cloud might be the one who physically saves her, but he doesn’t even so much give her a second glance to check on her well-being before he runs off to face Eligor. He leaves that job for Tifa). It almost feels like the Remake is going out of its way to avoid any moments between Cloud and Aerith that could be interpreted as romantic. In fact, after Corneo’s mansion, unless you get Aerith’s resolution, there are almost no one-on-one interactions at all between Cloud and Aerith. Such is not the case with Cloud and Tifa. In fact, right after defeating Abzu in the sewers, Cloud runs after Tifa, and asks her if what she’s saying is one of those slum lessons — continuing right where they left off.

Ch. 11 feels like a wink-wink nudge-nudge way to acknowledge the LTD. You have the infamous shot of the two girls on each of Cloud’s arms, and two scenes where Cloud appears as if he’s unable to choose between them when he asks them if they’re okay. Of course, in this same Chapter, you have a scene during the boss fight with the Phantom where Cloud actually pulls Tifa away from Aerith, leaving Aerith to defend herself, for an extended sequence where he tries to keep Tifa safe. This is not something SE would include if their intention is to keep Cloud’s romantic interest ambiguous or if Aerith is meant to be the one he loves. Of course, Ch. 11 is not the first we see of this trio’s dynamic. We start with Ch. 10, which is all about Aerith and Tifa’s friendship. Ch. 11 is a nod to the LTD dynamic in the OG, but it’s just that, a nod, not an indication the Remake is following the same path. Halfway through Ch. 11, the dynamic completely disappears.

Ch. 12 changes things up a bit from the OG. Instead of Cloud and Tifa ascending the pillar together, Cloud goes up first. Seemingly just so that we can have the dramatic slow-mo handgrab scene between the two of them when Tifa decides to run after Cloud — right after Aerith tells her to follow her heart.

The Remake also shows us what happens when Aerith goes to find Marlene at Seventh Heaven — including the moment when Aerith sees the flower she gave Cloud by the bar register, and Aerith is finally able to connect the dots. After seeing Cloud be so cagey about who he gave the flower to, and weird about his relationship with Tifa, and after seeing how Cloud and Tifa act around each other. It finally makes sense. She’s figured it out before they have. It’s a beautiful payoff to all that set up. Any other interpretation of Aerith’s reaction doesn’t make a lick of sense, because if it’s to indict she’s jealous of Tifa, where is all the set up for that? Why did the Remake eliminate all the moments from the OG where she had been noticeably jealous before? Without this, that interpretation makes about as much sense as someone arguing Aerith is smiling because she’s thinking about a great sandwich she had the night before. In case anyone is confused, the scene is preceded by a moment where Aerith tells Tifa to follow her heart before she goes after Cloud, and followed by the moment where Cloud catches Tifa via slow-motion handgrab.

On the pillar itself, there are so many added moments of Cloud showing his concern for Tifa’s physical and emotional well-being. Even when they find Jessie, as sad as Cloud is over Jessie’s death, the game actually spends more time showing us Cloud’s reaction to Tifa crying over Jessie’s death, and Cloud’s inability to comfort her. Since so much of this is physical rather than verbal, this couldn’t have effectively been shown in the OG with its technological limitations.

After the pillar collapses, we start off with a couple of other moments showing Cloud’s concern over Tifa — watching over her as she wakes, his dramatic fist clench while he watches Barret comfort Tifa in a way he cannot. There is also a subtle but important change in the dialogue. In the OG, Tifa is the one who tells Barret that Marlene is safe because she was with Aerith. Cloud is also on his way to Sector 5, but it’s for the explicit purpose of trying to save Aerith, which we know because Tifa asks. In the Remake, Tifa is too emotionally devastated to comfort Barret about Marlene. Cloud, trying to help in the only way he can, is now the one to tell Barret about Marlene. Leading them to Sector 5 is no longer about him trying to help Aerith, but about him reuniting Barret with his daughter. Again, another moment where Cloud shows concern about Aerith in the OG is eliminated from the Remake.

Rather than going straight from Aerith’s house to trying to figure out a way into the Shinra building to find Aerith, the group takes a detour to check out the ruins of Sector 7 and rescue Wedge from Shinra’s underground lab. It’s only upon seeing the evidence of Shinra’s inhumane experimentation firsthand that Cloud articulates to Elmyra the need to rescue Aerith. In the OG, they never sought out Elmyra’s permission, and Tifa explicitly asks to join Cloud on his quest. Rescuing Aerith is framed as primarily Cloud’s goal, Tifa and Barret are just along for the ride.

In the Remake, all three wait until Elymra gives them her blessing, and it’s framed (quite literally) as the group’s collective goal as opposed to just Cloud’s.

In the aptly named Ch. 14 resolutions, each marks the culmination of the character’s arc for the Part 1 of Remake. While their arcs are by no means complete, they do offer a nice preview of what their ultimate resolutions will be.

With the exception of Tifa’s, these resolutions are primarily about the character themselves. Their relationships with Cloud are secondary. Each resolution marks a change in the character themselves, but not necessarily a change in Cloud’s relationship with said character. Barret recommits to AVALANCHE’s mission and his role as a leader despite the deep personal costs. Aerith’s is full of foreshadowing as she accept her fate and impending death and decides to make the most of the time she has left. After trying to put aside her own feelings for the sake of others the whole time, Tifa finally allows herself to feel the full devastation of losing her home for the second time. Like her ultimate resolution in the Lifestream that we’ll see in about 25 years, Cloud is the only person she can share this sentiment with because he was the only person who was there.

Barret does not grow closer to Cloud through his resolution. Cloud has already proved himself to him by helping out on the pillar and reuniting him with Marlene. Barret resolution merely reveals that Barret is now comfortable enough with Cloud to share his past.

Similarly, Cloud starts off Aerith’s resolution with an intent to go rescue her, and ends with that intent still intact. Aerith is more open about her feelings here than before, it being a dream and all, but these feelings aren’t something that developed during this scene.

The only difference is during Tifa’s resolution. Cloud has been unable to emotionally comfort Tifa up until this point. It’s only when Tifa starts crying and rests her head upon his shoulder that he is able to make a change, to make a choice and hug her. Halfway through Tifa’s resolution, the scene shifts its focus to Cloud, his inaction and eventual action. Notably, the only time we have a close-up of any character during all three resolutions (I’ll define close-up here as a shot where a character’s face takes up half or more of the shot), are three shots of Cloud when he’s hugging/trying to hug Tifa. Tifa’s resolution is the only one where Cloud arcs.

What of the whole “You can’t fall in love with me” line in Aerith’s resolution? Why would SE include that if not to foreshadow Cloud falling in love with Aerith? Or indicate that he has already? Well, you can’t just take the dialogue on its own, you how to look at how these lines are framed. Notably, when she says “you can’t fall in love with me,” Aerith is framed at the center of the shot, and almost looks like she’s directly addressing the player. It’s as much a warning for the player as it is for Cloud, which makes sense if you know her fate in the OG.

This is followed directly by her saying “Even if you think you have…it’s not real.” In this shot, it’s back to a standard shot/reverse shot where she is the left third of the frame. She is addressing Cloud here, which, again if you’ve played the OG, is another bit of heavy foreshadowing. The reason Clould would think he might be in love with Aerith is because he’s falsely assuming of the memories of a man who did love Aerith — Zack.

For Cloud’s response (”Do I get a say in all this?”/ “That’s very one-sided” depending on the translation), rather than showing a shot of his face, the Remake shows him with his back turned.

Whatever Cloud’s feelings may be for Aerith, the game seems rather indifferent to them.

What is more telling is the choice to include a bit with Cloud getting jealous over a guy trying to give Tifa flowers in Barret’s resolution. Barret also mentions both Jessie and Aerith in their conversation, but nothing else gets such a reaction from Cloud.

It also should go without saying that if Aerith’s resolution is meant to establish Cloud and Aerith’s romance, there should have been plenty of set-up beforehand and plenty of follow-through afterward. That obviously is not the case, because again, the Remake has gone out of its way to avoid moments where Cloud’s actions towards Aerith could be interpreted romantically.

Case in point, at around this time in the OG, Marlene tells Cloud that she thinks Aerith likes him and the player has the option to have Cloud express his hope that she does. This scene is completely eliminated from the Remake and replaced with a much more appropriate scene of father-daughter affection between Marlene and Barret while Tifa and Cloud are standing together outside.

The method by which they get up the plate is completely different in the Remake. Leslie is the one who helps them this time around, and though his quest to reunite with his fiance directly parallels with the trio’s desire to save Aerith, Leslie himself draws a comparison to earlier when Cloud was trying to rescue Tifa. Finally, when Abzu is defeated again, it is Barret who draws the parallel of their search for Aerith to Leslie’s search for his fiance, making it crystal clear that saving Aerith is a group effort rather than only Cloud’s.

Speaking of Barret, in the OG, he seems to reassess his opinion of Cloud in the Shinra HQ stairs when he sees Cloud working so hard to save Aerith and realizes he might actually care about other people. In the Remake, that reevaluation occurs after you complete all the Ch. 14 sidequests and help a bunch of NPCs. Arguably, this moment occurs even earlier in the Remake for Barret, after the Airbuster, when he realizes that Cloud is more concerned for his and Tifa’s safety than his own.

Overall, the entire Aerith rescue feels so anticlimactic in the Remake. In the OG, Cloud gets his big hero moment in the Shinra Building. He’s the one who runs up to Aerith when the glass shatters and they finally reunite. In the Remake, it’s unclear what the emotional stakes are for Cloud here. At their big reunion, all we get from him is a “Yep.” In fact, when you look at how this scene plays out, Aerith is positioned equally between Cloud and Tifa at the moment of her rescue. Cloud’s answer is again with his back turned to the camera. It’s Tifa who gets her own shot with her response.

Another instance of the Remake being completely indifferent to Cloud’s feelings for Aerith, and actually priotizing Tifa’s relationship with Aerith instead.

It is also Tifa who runs to reunite with Aerith after the group of enemies is defeated. Another moment that could have easily been Cloud’s that the Remake gives to Tifa.

Also completely eliminated in the Remake, is the “I’m your bodyguard. / The deal was for one date” exchange in the jail cells. In the Remake, after Ch. 8, the date isn’t brought up again at all; “the bodyguard” reference only comes up briefly in Ch. 11 and then never again.

In the Remake, the jail scene is replaced by the scene in Aerith’s childhood room. Despite the fact that this is Aerith’s room, it is Tifa’s face that Cloud first sees when he wakes. What purpose does this moment serve other than to showcase Cloud and Tifa’s intimacy and the other characters’ tacit acknowledgment of said intimacy?

(This is the second time where Cloud wakes up and Tifa is the first thing he sees. The other was at Corneo’s mansion. He comes to three times in the Remake, but in Ch. 8, even though Aerith is right in front of him, we start off with a few seconds of Cloud gazing around the church before settling on the person in front of him. Again, while not something that most players would notice, this feels like a deliberate choice.)

Especially since this scene itself is all about Aerith. She begins a sad story about her past, and Cloud, rather than trying to comfort her in any way, asks her to give us some exposition about the Ancients. When the Whispers surround her, even though Cloud is literally right there, it's Tifa who pulls her out of it and comforts her. Another moment that could have been Cloud that was given to Tifa, and honestly, this one feels almost bizarre.

Throughout the entire Shinra HQ episode, Cloud and Aerith haven’t had a single moment alone to themselves. The Drums scenario is completely invented for the Remake. The devs could have contrived a way for Cloud and Aerith to have some one-on-one time here and work through the feelings they expressed during Aerith’s resolution if they wanted. Instead, with the mandatory party configurations during this stage - Cloud & Barret on one side; Tifa & Aerith on the others, with Cloud & Tifa being the respective team leaders communicating over PHS, the Remake minimizes the amount of interaction Cloud and Aerith have with each other in this chapter.

On the rooftop, before Cloud’s solo fight with Rufus, even though Cloud is ostensibly doing all this so that they can bring Aerith to safety, the Remake doesn’t include a single shot that focuses on Aerith’s face and her reaction to his actions. The game has decided, whatever Aerith’s feelings are in this moment, they’re irrelevant to the story they’re trying to tell. Instead we get shots focusing solely on Barret and Tifa. While the Remake couldn’t find any time to develop Cloud and Aerith’s relationship at the Shinra Tower (even though the OG certainly did), it did find time to add a new scene where Tifa saves Cloud from certain death, while referencing their Promise.

A lot of weird shit happens after this, but it’s pretty much all plot and no character. We do get one more moment where Cloud saves Tifa (and Tifa alone) from the Red Whisper even though Aerith is literally right next to her. The Remake isn’t playing coy at all about where Cloud’s preferences lie.

The party order for the Sephiroth battle varies depending on how you fought the Whispers. All the other character entrances (whoever the 3rd party member is, then the 4th and Red) are essentially the exact same shots, with the characters replaced. It’s the first character entrance (which can only be Aerith or Tifa) that you have two distinct options.

If Aerith is first, the camera pans from Cloud over to Aerith. It then cuts back to Cloud’s reaction, in a separate shot, as Aerith walks to join him (offscreen). It’s only when the player regains control of the characters that Cloud and Aerith ever share the frame.

On the other hand, if Tifa is first, we see Tifa land from Cloud’s POV. Cloud then walks over to join Tifa and they immediately share a frame, facing Sephiroth together.

Again, this is not something SE would expect the player to notice the first or even second time around. Honestly, I doubt anyone would notice at all unless they watched all these variations back to back. That is telling in itself, that SE would go through all this effort (making these scenes unique rather than copy and pasting certainly takes more time and effort) to ensure that the depictions of Cloud’s relationships with these two women are distinct despite the fact that hardly anyone would notice. Even in the very last chapter of the game, they want us to see Cloud and Tifa as a pair and Cloud and Aerith as individuals.

Which isn’t to say that Aerith is being neglected in the Remake. Quite the opposite, in fact, when she has essentially become the main protagonist and the group’s spirtual leader in Ch. 18. Rather, her relationship with Cloud is no longer an essential part of her character. Not to mention, one of the very last shots of the Remake is about Aerith sensing Zack’s presence. Again, not the kind of thing you want to bring up if the game is supposed to show her being in love with Cloud.

What does it all mean????

Phew — now let’s step back and look and how the totality of these changes have reshaped our understanding of the story as a whole. Looking solely at the Midgar section of the OG, and ignoring everything that comes after it, it seems to tell a pretty straightforward story: Cloud is a cold-hearted jerk who doesn’t care about anyone else until he meets Aerith. It is through his relationship with Aerith that he begins to soften up and starts giving a damn about something other than himself. This culminates when he risks it all to rescue Aerith from the clutches of the game’s Big Bad itself, The Shinra Electric Company.

This was honestly the reason why I was dreading the Remake when I learned that it would only cover the Midgar segment. A game that’s merely an expansion of the Midgar section of the OG is probably going to leave a lot of people believing that Cloud & Aerith were the intended couple, and I didn’t want to wait years and perhaps decades for vindication after the Remake’s Lifestream Scene.

I imagine this very scenario is what motivated SE to make so many of these changes. In the OG, they could get away with misdirecting the audience for the first few hours of the game since the rest of the story and the reveals were already completed. The player merely had to pop in the next disc to get the real story. Such is not the case with the Remake. Had the the Remake followed the OG’s beats more closely, many players, including some who’ve never played the OG, would finish the Remake thinking that Cloud and Aerith were the intended couple. It would be years until they got the rest of the story, and at that point, the truth would feel much more like a betrayal. Like they’ve been cruelly strung along.

While they’ve gone out of their way to adapt most elements from the OG into the Remake, they’ve straight up eliminated many scenes that could be interpreted as Cloud’s romantic interest in Aerith. Instead, he seems much more interested in her knowledge as an Ancient than in her romantic affections. This is the path the Remake could be taking. Instead of Cloud being under the illusion of falling in love with Aerith, he’s under the illusion that the answer to his identity dilemma lies in Aerith’s Cetra heritage, when, of course, the answer was with Tifa all along.

Hiding Sephiroth’s existence during the Midgar arc isn’t necessary to telling the story of FF7, thus it’s been eliminated in the Remake. Similarly, pretending that Cloud and Aerith are going to end up together also isn’t necessary and would only confuse the player. Thus the LTD is no longer a part of the Remake.

If Aerith’s impact on Cloud has been diminished, what then is his arc in the Remake? Is it essentially just the same without the catalyst of Aerith? A cold guy at the start who eventually learns to care about others through the course of the game? Kind of, though arguably, this is who Remake!Cloud is all along, not just Cloud at the end of the Remake. Cloud is a guy who pretends to be a selfish jerk, but he deep down he really does care. He just doesn’t show this side of himself around people he’s unfamiliar with. So part of his arc in the Remake is opening up to the others, Barret, AVALANCHE and Aerith included, but these all span a chapter or two at most. They don’t straddle the entire game.

What is the throughline then? What is an area in which he exhibits continuous growth?

It’s Tifa. It’s his desire to fulfill his Promise to Tifa. Not just to protect her physically, but to be there for her emotionally, something that’s much harder to do. There’s the big moments like when he remembers the Promise in Ch. 4., his dramatic fist clench when he can’t stop Tifa from crying in Ch. 12, and in Ch. 13 when he watches Barret comfort Tifa. It’s all the flashbacks he has of her and the times he’s felt like he failed her. It’s the smaller moments where he can sense her nervousness and unease but the only thing he knows how to do is call her name. It’s all those times during battle, where Tifa can probably take care of herself, but Cloud has to save her because he can’t fail her again. All of this culminates in Tifa’s Resolution, where Tifa is in desperate need of comfort, and is specifically seeking Cloud’s comfort, and Cloud has no idea what to do. He hesitates because he’s clueless, because he doesn’t want to fuck it up, but finally, he makes the choice, he takes the risk, and he hugs her….and he kind of fucks it up. He hugs her too hard. Which is a great thing, because this arc isn’t anywhere close to being over. There’s still so much more to come. So many places this relationship will go.

We get a little preview of this when Tifa saves Cloud on the roof. Everything we thought we knew about their relationship has been flipped on its head. Tifa is the one saving Cloud here, near the end of this part of the Remake. Just as she will save Cloud in the Lifestream just before the end of the FF7 story as a whole. What does Tifa mean to Cloud? It’s one of the first questions posed in the Remake, and by the end, it remains unanswered.

Cloud’s character arc throughout the entire FF7 story is about his reconciling with his identity issues. This continues to develop through the Shinra Tower Chapters, but it certainly isn’t going to be resolved in Part 1 of the Remake. His character arc in the Remake — caring more about others/finding a way to finally comfort Tifa — is resolved in Ch. 14, well before rescuing Aerith, which is what makes her rescue feel so anticlimactic. The resolution of this external conflict isn’t tied to the protagonist’s emotional arc. This was not the case in the OG. I’m certainly not complaining about the change, but the Remake probably would have felt more satisfying as a whole if they hewed to the structure of the OG. Instead, it seems that SE has prioritized the clarity of the Remake series as a whole (leaving no doubt about where Cloud’s affections lie) over the effectiveness of the “climax” in the first entry of the Remake.

This is all clear if you only focus on the “story” of the Remake -- i.e., what the characters are saying and doing. If you extend your lens to the presentation of said story, and here I’m talking about who the game chooses to focus on during the scenes, how long they hold on these shots, which characters share the frame, which do not, etc --- it really could not be more obvious.

Does the camera need to linger for over 5 seconds on Cloud staring at the door after wishing Tifa goodnight? Does it need to find Cloud almost every time Tifa says or does anything so that we’re always aware of his watchfulness and the nature of his care? The answer is no until you realize this dynamic is integral to telling the story of Final Fantasy VII.

I don’t see how anyone who compares the Remake to the OG could come away from it thinking that the Remake series is going to reverse all of the work done in the OG and Compilation by having Cloud end up with Aerith.

Just because the ending seems to indicate that the events of the OG might not be set in stone, it doesn’t mean that the Remake will end with Aerith surviving and living happily ever after with Cloud. Even if Aerith does live (which again seems unlikely given the heavy foreshadowing of her death in the Remake), how do you come away from the Remake thinking that Cloud is going to choose Aerith over Tifa when SE has gone out of its way to remove scenes between Cloud and Aerith that could be interpreted as romantic? And gone out of its way to shove Cloud’s feelings for Tifa in the player’s face? The sequels would have to spend an obscene amount of time not only building Cloud and Aerith’s relationship from scratch, but also dismantling Cloud’s relationship with Tifa. It would be an absolute waste of time and resources, and there’s really no way to do so without making the characters look like assholes in the process.

Now could this happen? Sure, in the sense that literally anything could happen in the future. But in terms of outcomes that would make sense based on what’s come before, this particular scenario is about as plausible as Cloud deciding to relinquish his quest to find Sephiroth so that he can pursue his real dream of becoming at sandwich artist at Panera Bread.

It’s over! I promise!

Like you, I too cannot believe the number of words I’ve wasted on this subject. What is there left to say? The LTD doesn’t exist outside of the first disc of the OG. You'll only find evidence of SE perpetuating the LTD if you go into these stories with the assumption that 1) The LTD exists 2) it remains unanswered. But it’s not. We know that Cloud ends up with Tifa.

What the LTD has become is dissecting individual scenes and lines of dialogue, without considering the context of said things, and pretending as if the outcome is unknown and unknowable. If you took this tact to other aspects of FF7’s story, then it would be someone arguing that because there a number of scenes in the OG that seem to suggest that Meteor will successfully destroy the planet, this means that the question of whether or not our heroes save the world in the end is left ambiguous. No one does that because that would be utterly absurd. Individual moments in a story may suggest alternate outcomes to build tension, to keep us on our toes, but that doesn’t change the ending from being the ending. Our heroes stop Meteor. Cloud loves Tifa. Arguments against either should be treated with the same level of credulity (i.e., none).

It’s frustrating that the LTD, and insecurities about whether or not Cloud really loves Tifa, takes up so much oxygen in any discussion about these characters. And it’s a damn shame, because Cloud and Tifa’s relationship is so rich and expansive, and the so-called “LTD” is such a tiny sliver of that relationship, and one of the least interesting aspects. They’re wonderful because they’re just so damn normal. Unlike other Final Fantasy couples, what keeps them apart is not space and time and death, but the most human and painfully relatable emotion of all, fear. Fear that they can’t live up to the other’s expectations; fear that they might say the wrong thing. The fear that keeps them from admitting their feelings at the Water Tower, they’re finally able to overcome 7 years later in the Lifestream. They’re childhood friends but in a way they’re also strangers. Like other FF couples, we’re able to watch their entire relationship grow and unfold before our eyes. But they have such a history too, a history that we unravel with them at the same time. Every moment of their lives that SE has found worth depicting, they’ve been there for each other, even if they didn’t know it at the time. Theirs is a story that begins and ends with each other. Their is the story that makes Final Fantasy VII what it is.

If you’ve made it this far, many thanks for reading. I truly have no idea how to use this platform, so please direct any and all hatemail to my DMs at TLS, which I will then direct to the trash. (In all seriousness, I’d be happy to answer any specific questions you may have, but I feel like I’ve more than said my piece here.)

If there’s one thing you take away from this, I hope it’s to learn to ignore all the ridiculous arguments out there, and just enjoy the story that’s actually being told. It’s a good one.

#cloti

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outbythehighwind · 4 years

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Aerith & Tifa: Visual Design

An Analysis of the Final Fantasy VII Heroines [Part 1]

This is the first part of my in-depth analysis on FF7′s heroines, where they are depicted as perfect foils to one another. For those who don’t know, a foil is a character who contrasts with another and simultaneously highlights the qualities of that other character. Foils can range from protagonists & antagonists to, in the case of the FF7 girls, very close friends. In exploring this particular writing technique, I will examine their differences and similarities, friendship, relationships to Cloud and Sephiroth, and their differing but equally important roles as heroines in the overall story. Before starting though, I want to mention one thing: I adore both characters, and Tifa and Aerith are to me the exemplary role models of fictional heroines.

Now let us begin with the first thing we are introduced to: their visual designs. (Note that visual design, like narrative, is a tool that can be purposefully accurate and/or purposefully misleading. This should be kept in mind throughout the entire analysis, for FF7 - to no exaggeration - gets more than the average game's pleasure out of tricking, subverting and astonishing it's audience.) Now, onto our beloved flower girl...

AERITH

Aerith’s visual design, at first glance, is one of a meek and kindly girl. Her long, sleeveless dress, pearl pink in color, elicits an air of grace, of softness and serenity. She appears gentle and pure. These qualities are enhanced by the matching pink ribbon in her hair, which adds an additional purity to the character – one of youthful girliness, evoking a naive separation from the gigantic world around her.

Accompanying the dress and ribbon is a short sleeve crop jacket. And instead of enhancing this grace and naivety, its crimson shade shows quite the opposite. Red is a bold and brazen color. Coupled with the 90’s crop-style of the jacket, it enforces strength and vigilance. The loud (and somewhat rebellious) qualities of her jacket countervail the quiet elements of her dress and ribbon. They are a contrasting balance, as we will soon find out, of Aerith’s personality. She is gentle and pure, but she is no softie. She has complete confidence in herself.

These contrasting qualities are connected in the fact that red and pink are proximate colors. While the dress and jacket themselves are from two different worlds, the colors go together. Moreover, red and pink are the colors that represent love. Mixed together, they create ‘hot pink’ – a color used to communicate playfulness. A beautiful metaphor for both Aerith’s love for all life and her playful, sassy personality.

Moving on to her footwear, we find an even sharper contrast. One would expect that a person who so fashionably marries grace and strength would have stylish footwear to match. Yet here is Aerith with a pair of grimy, commonplace boots. While the dress, jacket and ribbon communicate her nature and personality, these grimy, commonplace boots inform the player of the life she is leading – the life of a girl who has grown up in the slums. These grimy, commonplace boots are the wise and fitting footwear to get by.

Aerith’s boots and hair are the same shade of brown, framing the vibrant personality her outfit presents. In addition to the bright, lively clothing, her hair is a standout feature of her character. And there is another character that shares this feature. Aerith’s trademark bangs share an almost-identical design to Sephiroth’s, an allusion to her in-every-sense enemy foil. Not only do the pair share similarities in their hair, but also in clothing: Sephiroth’s collar parallels Aerith’s jacket; his wrist-cuffs parallel Aerith’s bracelets; his cloak parallels the length of her dress; and his eyes – although mako-induced – are an even deeper green than Cloud’s, in direct match to Aerith’s.

Their bright green eyes further represent their foil-roles in relation to the external plot of FF7 – the plot concerned with the Planet. Aerith’s eyes are green with life, representing her connection with the Planet. Sephiroth, of course, holds a connection too, though his Mako-induced green is not his authentic color, portraying him as the false ‘savior’ he acclaims himself to be, in contrast to the true savior that is Aerith.

To see Aerith and Sephiroth’s designs as directly antithetical to one another, consider their concepts below, with Aerith’s weapon and hair trailing right while Sephiroth’s weapon and hair trails left – like a mirror image. Also, notice Aerith’s bright, vibrant design against Sephiroth’s dark, monochromatic design - a visual display of life and light against darkness. But more on Sephiroth later.

There is no FF7 character with a brighter visual design than Aerith – fittingly, for she is the party’s light. In the remake, her outfit is much the same, if not expanded upon. The jacket reaches her hips rather than waist, and the boots are black, yet about as commonplace as the original brown boots. The notable difference is her dress. The remake fits Aerith in a looser, frilly dress, which actually enhances her grace and creates a more deceptive air of naive youthfulness, much like the longer crop jacket further enhances her boldness.

TIFA

There are two roles incorporated into Tifa’s visual design: Tifa the barkeep; and Tifa the monk (that is, a martial artist of FF-verse). We will begin with the former, the first role introduced when the player meets her in Seventh Heaven.

Tifa’s barkeep design consists of black forearm sleeves matching a black skirt that is held up by suspenders. With her hair tucked behind her left ear, a teardrop earring is visible. Immediately, one gets the sense of warmness and invitation they would associate with a hostess. The skirt and suspenders appeal to the sensuous aspect of the design while the sleeve and earring give off an aura of classiness. Overall, an attraction is formed between Tifa and player – that sense of warmness and invitation drawing the player toward her. This attraction is enhanced by her long, dark hair and warm, wine-hued eyes. Not only is the color of Tifa’s eyes a clever nod to her literal bar-hosting, but it alludes to what her bar-hosting metaphorically symbolizes – a nurturing motherliness accentuated by their warmth. Not only is the player drawn in by the clothing she dons, but Tifa’s natural features are what inaugurates the invitation.

Next is the role of monk. Padded gloves and boots match the dark red shade of Tifa’s eyes, coupling her warmth and hospitality with strength. Strength and its associated qualities – firmness, power, intensity – are usually found in opposition to tenderness. But manifested in these items of clothing that are the same color as the defining embodiment of the latter (Tifa’s eyes), strength and tenderness are bridged together. Tifa is a fighter fueled by compassion. Tifa is a fighter who fights to protect. A matching dark red band ties the ends of her locks together to keep them collected, and on her left elbow and boot are armored guards, enhancing her aura of strength. Finally, she wears an ordinary white tank top for practicality in movement.

Put together with the elements of her bartender design, Tifa’s fighting gear gives her an unconventionally unique appearance: a smash-’em-if-required barkeep; a drink-serving monk. This overall appearance has an appropriate balance between allure and profession. It is attractive without being voluptuous. It is welcoming without hiding the fact that she could easily kick one’s ass if need be. And across her entire visual design, the two roles are in equilibrium. The player is drawn in to her design in the one sense, and then they are let in on what she is physically capable of. In other words, Tifa’s visual design uses its every component to give the player insight on her character. At the same time, however, it purposefully masks a great deal.

Accompanying this ‘smash-’em barkeep, drink-serving monk’ design so centered on conveying its dual-role aspects, are two items that educate the more observant player on Tifa’s circumstances. One of these has already been mentioned and is the classiest element of her design, while the other – which will likely go unnoticed – is the most ordinary. The former, Tifa’s aforementioned earring, is in the shape of a tear, subtly reflecting her past of sorrows and heartache. Yet it is her outfit’s grandest, most expensive item; this past of sorrows and heartache is what enabled her to become strong while remaining compassionate for others. Being a single teardrop on only one ear signifies how Tifa deals with emotions – the emotions she, as her name suggests, locks away in her heart. One drop for herself, the basic remembrance, the fuel, is all she outwardly allows.

Then we have the most ordinary item – a pair of woolly black socks. These socks are so subtle that even the exceptionally observant player might miss them, yet they are the single item that appeals to neither monk nor barkeep. They are distinctly… Tifa – Tifa the ordinary. Every other element is inch-perfect on what it communicates, yet here is a pair of ordinary socks that look as though they were thrown on in a morning’s rush. They give her this every-girl, neighborly quality which the player will be distracted from until the truth comes to light, with Tifa’s centrality and intimacy in the internal plot being revealed – the plot concerned with saving Cloud.

Speaking of literal neighborly vibes and intimacy, it is worth mentioning in brief that certain elements of Tifa’s outfit share similarity with Cloud’s. Both wear two metal guards only on their left side (Tifa on her elbow and boot and Cloud on his shoulder and wrist), a subtle allusion to their being ‘half’-selves on the surface (Cloud with his Zack-delusion and Tifa with her hidden feelings). Cloud too wears an earring in his left ear – a studded one, signifying, like Tifa’s teardrop, a certain brokenness of self. In Advent Children, both wear a black sleeveless vest with a high zip collar, a black cape, black boots (notice that Tifa has now replaced her trademark red) and a wolf symbol (on Cloud��s badge and Tifa’s ring) – a symbol associated specifically with Cloud. I mention these details because of Cloud’s centrality to Tifa’s story and vice versa, which will later be discussed in her role as heroine.

Tifa’s design for the remake is a nice though slight variation that fits in with the more realistic aesthetic. Her skirt has pleated segments, making for more realistic movements during combat, and her abs are toned, further enforcing her strength and perseverance in protecting her loved ones. Her black thigh-highs are an additional element, complimenting her forearm sleeves.

Despite the subtle, throw-‘em-on-in-a-hurry socks being foregone, Tifa’s remake outfit perfectly balances her barkeep and monk roles. The omission of such a neutralizing feature works even better with regard to Tifa’s character, in my opinion, for her true thoughts and feelings will be hidden for much of the game. Thus we are led astray, and the narrative will constantly push us further and further away from her inner emotions hidden beneath these two outward roles.

By visual design alone, and in the narrative that will follow, the player is led to believe Tifa has complete confidence in herself. But appearance of course, like narrative, can be deceiving.

SUMMARY

Straight away, by visual design, we have two heroines who are each a blend of multiple characteristics, yet not fitting a particular trope. They are completely unique in their own right, exemplifying both relatable and admirable traits.

Aerith, who we expect to be the meek and youthfully naive girl at first glance, embodies an undeniable self-confidence that compliments her kindness. Tifa, who looks extremely confident on appearance, has an emotional shyness masked by two bold outward roles. Aerith is the vibrant light who guides outer world adventure; Tifa is the inviting warmth who makes one feel at home. Aerith bridges the attributes of grace and toughness; Tifa balances the qualities of compassion and strength. While both exemplify these heroic traits by their very design, they are - however subtly shown - struggling slum girls.

#my analyses #ff7 1997 #ff7 remake #tifa lockhart #aerith gainsborough #parallels

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artimidas · 3 years

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ALRIGHT 4,5,6, 12, 34, 49, 43!

4. What was your first Warden (gender/class/race/personality)?

Male Elf Mage, a Spirit Healer; not much to say about personality as back in the day my first characters were always self inserts and I did not really roleplay, just did what felt right. Especially given the fact I was 13 not knowing what Dragon Age wiki is and ended up accidentally failing to save the circle mages because I did not know how :(

5. What was your first Hawke like (gender/class/temperament)?

Male Mage! a Force Mage; somewhere between Diplomatic and Humorous. Similar situation as above

6. First Inquisitor (gender/class/race/personality)?

Im gonna be boring and say Human Male Mage, a Knight Enchanter. My first Inquisitor was still in my young days when I did not really create “characters” with themes and backstories so again just did what I would do in his shoes.

12. Do you prefer DA:O, DA2, or DA:I most?

Hmm.. Inquisition - bigger scale story, lots of customization, QUNARI INQUISITOR, beautiful places, quite defined and interesting companions. However I would love to enhance it with the magic abilities from previous games and combat from DA2, which just felt smooth and right. (also blood magic, necromancy does not cut it.. just because the eyes of the church are on me does not mean I cant cut my palm ffs). Also! DA2 had everybody BI! I NEED THAT - OR MORE QUALITY GAY OPTIONS IN GENERAL.

34. Least favorite character?

Sebastian? The only feeling I have when thinking about him is... boredom and dullness. Closely followed by Carver.. he was the brother I never wish I had. Come think of it it was many many years since I played DA2 properly, maybe I would think otherwise these days.

43. Favorite romance overall so far?

A tie between Morrigan and Dorian.

I romanced Morrigan back when I thought I was straight and I felt the romance was very rewarding and interesting, Witch Hunt was a cherry on top. I enjoy her character and voice actress very much still (now from a yas queen perspective) and was disappointed she was not a party member in Inquisition.

Dorian because he is hot, has shit to say and is a Tevinter Mage. Hello? he is power couple realness. Trespasser ending of the romance was just wonderful, I live. I hope in DA4 he will tell the player some good stories about Inquisitors dick and how they are in a fully functional long distance relationship and will marry when this shit is over (did not care about the whole being gay in Tevinter rich families is a stigma because breeding.. that was felt like a bullshit writing choice trying to make some real world relatable content I did not ask for just give me fantasy gays without homophobic world building)

49. Something you do in EVERY DA playthrough, no matter what?

I play a homo mage, I cheat and mod my game, I support mage and non-human rights, I preserve everything supernatural - lest we will “be left with nothing more than the mundane” and I spend too much effort and nerve on coordinating the party aesthetic.

Thanks a lot for these I had a blast!

#Dragon Age #Dragon Age spoilers #I guess

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fantasyresident · 5 years

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My Favorite Final Fantasy Themes Across The Franchise

Final Fantasy games tend to have a history of expressing powerful themes to the player regarding a variety of topics including love, life, death, brotherhood, family, and more. I wanted to reflect on the themes that impacted me the most, highlighting the defining moment of each theme and why I treasure its presentation so much.

Final Fantasy 4: Light, Darkness, and Repentence

Final Fantasy 4 is one of my favorite FF titles to date, which is no surprise to me considering it has one of my favorite themes in video game history. Final Fantasy 4 harbors 3 characters in particular who contribute to this virtuous message, being Cecil, Kain, and Golbez. Each of these characters struggle with light and darkness, but from first glance, Golbez just seems like an evil guy in armor with no limits to his barbarism. Kain becomes wrapped up in his web, making him seem as if he’s gone down the same path. Meanwhile, Cecil seems to have all but forgotten his dark past stepping fully into the light after his journey to Mt. Ordeals. But the way the game shakes up these positions is staggering and why I revere this game’s storytelling to the extent that I do. We learn that Kain and Golbez were both pawns of their own inner darkness, controlled by Zemus.

These characters were truly good at heart, yet struggled with their own dark emotions that made them so vulnerable to the grips of darkness. Kain’s jealousy of Cecil having the love of Rosa, while Golbez was devastated about his mother’s passing due to the birth of Cecil. The shame these two felt for their actions stemmed from these emotions, causing a deep sense of shame within them. Both Kain and Golbez assumed a new identity to hide this shame, (Hooded Man and Man In Black) not desiring any attention or respect for the acts of repentance they would take part in to try to heal the world they tore apart. Meawhile, Cecil who the player is convinced has already gotten over his ordeal (no ff4 Mt. Ordeals pun intended) actually ends up being the last one saved from his darkness, while both Kain and Golbez are giving their all to make up for what they have done. FF4 teaches us that no matter how deep we end up in our own darkness, for whatever reason we fall to it, there’s always the light of forgiveness waiting for us if we’re not expecting it of others. To do acts of kindness like Kain was doing for Ceodore, Cecil’s son, without the want or need to be recognized, that is true heroism. If one does an act of kindness expecting a public eye to witness it, they are not doing an act of good for the world, they are only doing it for themselves.

Final Fantasy 6- Loving Your Enemies and Renewal

In Final Fantasy 6, we witness the world become ravaged by the game’s villain, Kefka Palazzo who desires to become a god. Terra on the other hand, refuses to accept this as the world’s fate. While she is obviously an opposing force to Kefka, she does not express hatred towards him, even after all he done to her as a Magitek Knight. This as a player impacted me greatly and its one of the reasons I love Terra so much. She can look into the eyes of someone like Kefka, who anyone else would label irredeemably evil, and see humanity’s struggle in them. Terra sees a bit of herself in Kefka, a man who like her, was trapped in the clutches of Magitek energy, an energy that can warp the mind and personality of the user. Terra alone teaches the player that love is the true essence of life, even if sometimes its buried deep within us.

Her ability to finally understand love for herself despite being half esper and mind controlled for much of her life is truly inspiring. After the world is ravaged by Kefka, the characters of Final Fantasy 6 express hope in the world being built anew. Once something is destroyed or gone, it always comes back in another form, sometimes unrecognizable to the naked eye. That is the true message of FF6. Nothing is ever truly gone when you appreciate the underlying value of life itself.

Final Fantasy 9- Our Days Are Numbered

The ending of Final Fantasy 9 hit me like a truck full of tin bricks, and for good reason. This game throughout its entirety leads up to FF9′s main theme: we don’t live forever. But at the same time, while our lives are limited in number, they are not limited in the way we live them. By helping others (regardless of whether if we have a reason to help them or not), we make our lives worth the limit. By impacting someone with a kind deed, like Zidane trying to save Kuja, his mortal enemy prior to this, you make a chain of impacts that changes the world for the better. No matter how sour the villain, like Queen Brahnne or Kuja, everyone deep down just wants to feel the essence of kindness. Those who lack that experience tend to be more prone to the darker path in life, but if we light a candle for these people in our lives, we can truly make a difference from selfless acts of good. This is why no matter how many times I see Zidane go back for Kuja in the end of FF9, it always makes the tears flow.

The kind of mortal greatness that Zidane holds as a character makes me truly believe in the goodness of our hearts, especially when he could have ended up just like his beloved brother. My favorite lesson of them all.

Final Fantasy X/X-2- The Bounds Of Love and Sacrifice

Final Fantasy X and its sequel have very powerful narratives regarding love and the meaning of sacrifice. X teaches us that everything must eventually come to an end, and really gives us a front row seat to the grief that our losses causes us. In X, characters like Yuna were bound by Yevon, a belief that many of the characters believed they must follow to the ends of the earth regardless of the consequences. But as Yuna learns, this isn’t the right solution. In the end of X, sacrifices are made and the loss is felt especially when Tidus must disappear right before Yuna’s eyes. This encourages Yuna to go through a major change in X-2, deciding that she wouldn’t be bound by the rules and expectations of others no more, given that Yevon was the cause of much pain, a relgiion that made everyone lose sight of what was truly precious to them. Yuna dedicates her newfound freedom to helping others and bettering the world, while she looks for Tidus who, due to a special sphere recording, she believes is possibly still alive. Through the introduction of the characters Lenne and Shuyin, the player witnesses the endless bounds of time and space that love can transcend through the 1000 words scene, and their spiritual reunion at the end of the game. Yuna, however, still doesn’t have the love she has been looking for, but in the “bad” ending, she realizes that maybe this is for a reason. Perhaps this journey of hers filled with heartbreaks and laughs was a lesson, that maybe love isn’t always a material feeling, it doesn’t require the one you cherish to be standing there in the flesh. As long as they are in your heart, there is no distance that those 1000 words cannot travel.

What was your favorite lesson or moment in Final Fantasy history? Reblog and share your own favorites! :)

#final fantasy #ff1 #ff2 #ff3 #ff4 #ff5 #ff6 #ff7 #ff8 #ff9 #ff10 #ff10-2 #jrpg #rpg #ff4 the after years #the after years #golbez #yuna #kain #cecil #terra #kefka #kuja #zidane

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khtrinityftw · 4 years

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The Good, The Bad, and the Cards - A Brief Look Back at KH: Chain of Memories

It’s been 15 years since Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories was released, and while I adore this game, I want to look back and highlight 7 specific elements worthy of praise that still hold up to this day and 7 specific elements that aren’t so good and helped derail the KH franchise going forward, the “Franchise Original Sins” as it were. So without further ado, here they are:

Positive: The Card Map System - I really love the usage of cards when it comes to exploring each world. Through the different cards, you get to create your own customized dungeon to crawl through, and the incentive to battle in order to collect cards you need to progress further in the level is a good one.

Negative: The Card Battle System - Unfortunately, using cards in combat isn’t done nearly as smoothly, and they complicate battles way more than they should. This is especially bad in the original GBA version of the game, where the cards are hard to make out on the small screen and the tiny, cramped arenas that you fight in make it all too easy to get backed into a corner while trying to shuffle through or reload your deck. This game could’ve done better.

Positive: Sora’s Story - The main scenario of the game is superbly written by Daisuke Watanabe. Like I said in my video review, he took what he was given, which was virtually nothing, and turned it into something. Sora’s character has never been explored in as much depth as it is here, with all of his raw strengths and weaknesses on full display. His bond of friendship with Donald and Goofy, his strong romantic interest in Kairi, his tortured clashing with “Riku”, his animosity toward Organization XIII, and the interactions he has with Namine toward the end are all handled perfectly. It really reminds you of just why you love this guy.

Negative: Riku’s Story - Reverse/Rebirth, otoh, doesn’t hold up so well. It tries its best to give Riku good character development, but too much of it is focused on practically everyone but Riku, the lack of anything occurring in the Disney worlds means that the story feels too light on content, and the conclusion Riku’s character is ultimately brought to contradicts what was established in the original KH and only creates further problems down the line. What’s more, this was the start of forcing Riku down our throats as the deuteragonist of the series, which is a role he was never suited for and that he only gets worse in overtime. So yeah, not a fan.

Positive: Organization XIII - Primarily the members introduced in Sora’s story; Lexaeus and Zexion are more useful as plot devices than as characters. Not only are Axel, Larxene, Vexen and Marluxia all excellent villains in their own ways, but the villainous arc they are part of is the best-written one in any KH game. Watching them work off each other and against each other in this dark but easy to follow political intrigue plot is one of the game’s highest points.

Negative: The Riku Replica - Don’t get me wrong, this was a decent character with a decent arc, but the execution was way too over-the-top and overstayed its welcome. Between Sora and Riku’s story, you have to fight this asshole six times! That’s just ridiculous for any boss in any game! And then there’s what the whole “replica” concept he introduced was used for in subsequent games, since Nomura just loves taking the simple and making it convoluted.

Positive: The GBA Graphics - This is one of the best-looking GBA games ever, hands-down. The fact that full cutscenes with PS2-style graphics were actually able to fit on the cartridge is simply incredible, and Square should really be commended for pushing the system to its absolute limits.

Negative: Console Spread - COM marked the first time that a KH game was put on an entirely different console than before, being a GBA game released and set in between two PS2 games. This wasn’t too much of a problem back then, since COM was only needed to fully understand the purposefully confusing prologue of KH2 and it ended up getting a PS2 remake anyway. But after a while, the sheer amount of consoles that KH spin-off games that are necessary to understand KH3′s story with became ridiculous. At this point, the only way you can actually get the full KH series is to own a PS4. If you don’t, then you’re out of luck.

Positive: Disney Expansion - Because this game re-uses Disney characters and worlds from the original KH, Daisuke Watanabe got to expand on things that weren’t really delved into in that game. We get more on Aladdin’s character, more on Alice’s character, more on Peter Pan and Wendy’s characters, more on Belle and the Beast’s characters and relationship…and perhaps most notable of all, more on Jiminy Cricket’s character. The Disney worlds and characters that we saw in KH are all enriched by their memory-based appearances.

Negative: An Influx of OCs - The original KH only had four original characters: Sora, Riku, Kairi and Ansem (five if you are counting Xemnas from Final Mix). COM introduced nine new ones: Namine, Axel, Larxene, Marluxia, Vexen, Lexaeus, Zexion, Riku Replica, and DiZ. Again, this wasn’t a problem with the game back then, especially seeing as two-thirds of those characters get axed before the game is through. But it started the trend of Nomura introducing way too much OCs that come to overshadow all the Disney and FF characters. Worse still, he refuses to truly let any of them go, as all six of those dead characters end up coming back to life later on, as do the two who went on to perish in KH2. This results in an overly cluttered canvas by KH3, to the point where no FF characters can appear.

Positive: Set-up for KH2 - This game’s existence did for KH2 what the later Dream Drop Distance should have done for KH3 but didn’t: it effectively set the stage for the following game. It gave all of the necessary foreshadowing for things like Nobodies, the Organization’s true goal, Xemnas, Roxas, Twilight Town, Namine being Kairi’s Nobody, and DiZ being the true Ansem while the Ansem we knew being an impostor. It also removed five members of the Organization from the board, with the sixth slated for removal in KH2′s prologue, which left the villain roster at a much more manageable number for the game’s main scenario. COM truly feels like the middle installment of a trilogy: the shit that happens in it actually matters.

Negative: Too Much Rehash from KH1 - There is so much from the original KH that is on repeat in COM. Beyond the same Disney worlds and characters being re-used, the stories in those worlds and with those characters match the original KH’s beat for beat, except with themes of memory inserted in and all context to the larger narrative removed so that they feel like filler. Both recycling from the first KH and Disney world visits being filler were not so bad in this game, but when it kept happening throughout the rest of the series, players grew sick of it. Furthermore, beats from the first KH still transpire in the main storyline of the game: Namine is in a role like Kairi’s, the Riku Replica is in a role like Riku’s, Marlxuia is in a role like both Maleficent and Ansem while Ansem himself comes back for more fun darkness times in Riku’s story, and we get sequences of Sora being separated from Donald and Goofy (this time it’s flipped and he’s the one who turns on them), the trio making an “All for One, One for All” promise as they put their hands on one another, and Sora making a promise with Namine that has Kairi’s good luck charm at the center of it. It’s all a little too much familiarity.

Positive: Atmosphere - As much as this game rehashes the previous one, it has a markedly different tone. It’s darker, more foreboding, more eerie, more psychological and uncertain. The white walls of Castle Oblivion and the creepy music playing as you go through them floor by floor really helps to sell this, as does a lot of the dialogue, memory-based insights into the characters’ hearts, and twisted machinations of the villains. It makes COM, well, memorable.

Negative: Convoluted Writing - That’s right, it all starts here. The writing for the original KH was smart enough to not actively dwell on the more ponderous elements of its story, keeping the narrative to a simple presentation while leaving the deeper lore as stuff for the player to think and speculate about it on their own. But in this game, it starts getting pushed to the forefront. Memory and darkness are the central themes of Sora and Riku’s story respectively, and yet neither of them quite make sense the way they’re explored. Memory is repeatedly said to be an aspect of the heart, to the point where removing it altogether would shatter a person’s heart completely. Except that this is not only confusing to basic logic that says memory is an aspect of the mind, but it gets contradicted by the following game, KH2, where it states that Nobodies that have no hearts act upon the memories of when they had hearts. Then we have Namine’s powers and how it relates to memories, which is nebulously defined here and ends up ballooning to ludicrous godlike degrees in order to make certain plot turns happen in later games, and you end up retroactively questioning why she didn’t just fuck with the Organization’s memories and shatter them in order to escape captivity all by herself.

Meanwhile, darkness is completely rewritten so that it can be a good thing if Riku isn’t afraid of it and uses it for a good cause...except that this is literally what he did in the first KH and it corrupted him. Darkness was unambiguously bad and something that should not be used in that game, but now it’s being revamped just to make Riku into a special snowflake with uber-awesome darkness powers. Future games continue going back and forth on darkness on whether it’s good, bad or neutral, whether it’s a natural force that needs to co-exist with light or whether it’s the source of all evil in the universe. And I again must remind you that this is only the start of how convoluted the series gets with its stories! By KH3, the series has become an absolute clusterfuck where nothing really makes sense or amounts to anything. There’s no real depth anymore, just pretentious nonsense that Nomura confuses for depth.

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seriouslyhooked · 6 years

Text

Scoring Your Love (Part 12/?)

Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six,Part Seven,Part Eight. Story also on FF here and AO3 here. Banner by the wonderful @timetravelandfairytales

Modern AU where Killian is a world famous soccer star who has hit rock bottom and been sentenced to the place where ‘football’ legends go to die – America. While here he crosses paths with Emma, an up and coming musician and film scorer who challenges everything he thought he knew and makes him want more than the game he’s always loved. Will be filled with fluff for days, and eventually rated M.

A/N: Hey everybody! Remember how I said there might be some hiccups along the way in this story? Well let’s call today a hiccup. It’ll be okay though, friends, because you know if it was actually really bad I would warn you before hand, but there is some drama today that’s been looming on the horizon for a while. Hope that you guys enjoy the chapter and I would love to know what you all think! Thanks for reading!

“And you’re really sure about this, Jones?” Robin asked Killian as they stood in the team room adjoining the press hall in the stadium. “Because I can talk to Regina. Contract or not, she can’t force you into this.”

Killian appreciated his coach’s concern, and where many people might think that Robin was taking all of this too seriously, Killian knew the truth. The press could be brutal for athletes of his standing, and with his history there was bound to be some awkwardness. To go from one of the most talked about footballers in the world to pretty much off the grid for public consumption was abnormal to say the least. So far, however, the press had respected his boundaries. Over the past few months of the season, Killian hadn’t had to do this and he also hadn’t been hounded by paparazzi or rogue sports bloggers. That was thanks, no doubt, to the power of Regina and her family’s influence, but Killian knew he couldn’t ignore this part of his world forever. For better or worse this was a key element of his job, and the sooner he did this, the sooner he could be done with it.

“She’s already screened the questions, which is better than most of my interactions with the press in the past,” Killian reasoned, his voice lilting with a joking edge as he shrugged his shoulders. “Besides the sooner I get this done, the sooner it’s behind me.”

“And the sooner you can get to your date tonight,” David chimed in as he walked up to them. “But brace yourself, man. There’s a lot of them out there.”

“There always are, mate,” Killian said, trying to portray the overconfident cockiness he was known for as he straightened out his suit jacket and headed through the doors.

Instantly the flashes of the cameras blinded him, pulsing every second as photogs tried to get the perfect shot of Killian. At the same time murmurings of his name, coupled with the most eager of reporters directly trying to talk to him, began. But all of this chaos was to be expected. The press was hardly known for its patience, especially with high profile players like Killian, but before it could get too out of hand, Regina called everyone’s attention back to her.

“Now gentleman, what did I say about manners?” she chided, her voice cool but resolute.

“Hey, there are ladies in here too,” one particularly overeager sportscaster said as Regina chuckled in response.

“There are, but they all knew I meant what I said and they’ll be rewarded for that. Yelling isn’t going to work in my house. You play by my rules or you’re out of here. Got it?”

The quiet that settled in as Killian took his spot at the table before all the microphones was answer enough, and Killian fought the urge to smile at the looks on some of the audience’s faces. Many of the most taken aback journalists were ones he recognized as being on the European circuit, so clearly they hadn’t had the chance to tangle with the Queen until now.

The movement of the conference from there went as well as could be expected. Regina had told him that she needed half an hour of his time, and she ran a tight enough ship to allow that. Just as she promised, she favored almost all of those question-askers who had been quiet at his arrival with opportunity, leaving the others grumbling and frustrated. It provided an interesting dynamic for Killian too, since most of those early questions actually had to do with the game. He was happy to answer those, admitting that he hadn’t stayed on top of his stats as dutifully as he had in the past, but that he was happy with his effort so far this season and that of his whole team as well.

“Killian, what do you think that moving to the American leagues has given you?” one woman asked along the way, and though her phrasing was innocent it struck Killian with a bit more force than the other queries had.

The truth was that this move had offered him so much more than people would ever know. The answer that this fleet of reporters was looking for no doubt had to do with privacy from the press or a clean slate on a new team and both of those were undoubtedly true. But the most important thing that this move had given Killian was a wake up call about his life and what he wanted. He had entered this contract a far more broken man and he was now at the twenty game mark yielding both a perfect 20-0 record and a whole new world perspective. Now the game wasn’t the most important thing to him, Emma was, but strangely enough his change of priorities hadn’t hurt his playing it all, it had only made him better.

“It’s given me everything,” Killian responded evenly, and as all eyes and cameras remained trained on him he expanded the thought. “I left a great team back home, a talented group to be sure, with a city and a country filled with passionate fans. But the culture here is different. It’s not just the fact that Americans call it soccer that makes them unique.”

The press corps laughed at Killian’s purposeful joke, feeding into his ploy to appear charming and put together. Then Killian returned his eyes to the woman who had asked this question and pressed on.

“I honestly didn’t come into this expecting what I’ve found. The love of the game here is just as strong as anywhere in the world, and the emphasis on team as opposed to being the best is refreshing. It’s not about big names and perfect stats. It’s about which man gives his all on the pitch and which man doesn’t. This team is filled with men willing to go the extra mile, and I appreciate that.”

“And what about your personal life?” A faceless voice asked, going against the tone of the conference all-together. Regina was in charge of calling on reporters, but this man had spoken of his own volition and he showed no signs of stopping. “What about the hot blonde you’ve been seen with, Emma Swan?”

In the span of two heartbeats Killian’s world went from normal to doused in anger and a little fear. It enraged him that this man would bring up Emma at all, never mind with descriptors that disrespected all she had to offer, but he was also shaken by the fact that people even knew of her. Here he was thinking he’d done all he could to keep things private between them. The press had mentioned nothing substantial about his dating life either here or at home, as Killian had been checking in every day, but that peace and solitude was broken now and Killian felt terrible and irate all at once.

“Cameras off, now!” Regina said, and immediately everyone complied, live feeds or not. The sound people moved to cut their recordings and the whole operation stopped so forcefully Killian was awed by it even through his anger.

“Now, Who asked that?” Regina yelled, her voice cutting through the large room almost like a blade. “I will not ask a second time.”

As if people were so scared of her that they physically had to move, the crowd shifted and both Killian and Regina could see the perpetrator. Instantly Killian knew that the truce that landed him here had been broken, because this man was familiar. He was a writer for one of the most sordid tabloids back home and the owner of that tabloid just so happened to be Killian’s largest enemy: Gold.

“I think the people have a right to know about -,”

“This is the part where you shut your insolent mouth and listen well,” Regina replied, interrupting the man who clearly had balls to even try to go against her. Now, however, the reporter practically cowered where he stood. “I was very clear with my expectations, Mr. Glass, and even though you work for a dumpster fire of a paper, I let you into my home, into my stadium, with the understanding that you’d walk the line. Since you’ve failed to do that you are now no longer welcome.”

Regina motioned to the security staff who immediately stepped in and escorted the man out. It was a sight to see, and the display of power was almost chilling even if Killian was grateful for it. That being said the damage was already done. Emma’s name was already out there and that was Killian’s fault. Her whole life might be changed because of this and he just couldn’t forgive himself for that.

“You can go now, Killian,” Regina said in a way that was defined but more sympathetic. “I’ll handle this.”

Killian thanked her as he left, knowing that even if Regina was capable of granting a miracle this couldn’t be totally undone. Emma’s name was out there now, and whether he had a hundred reporters looking for the scoop, or just those in Gold’s army, it wouldn’t matter. The small kind of sanctuary he had and the beautiful freedoms he’d indulged in living in LA were gone. There was no more anonymity, and tonight’s date would likely be the last time he and Emma could make such a public outing without interference. The only question was should he try to enjoy the evening and then tell Emma, or should he come clean immediately and deal with the potential fall out? Killian was still grappling with that choice when he arrived at the restaurant where he and Emma were meeting and he was brought to their table where she was already waiting for him.

“Well if it isn’t Mr. Undefeated himself,” Emma greeted when he approached the table, and the teasing in her voice made the heartache Killian was dealing with all the more bittersweet.

Instinctively Emma got up from her spot to meet him, and though she pressed a soft kiss to his lips that was meant for a more casual kind of greeting, Killian couldn’t bring himself to let her go. He deepened the moment, letting himself get lost in Emma and the feeling of this bond between them before reality could settle in again. Losing himself in the kiss, his hands held her close, roaming her body and trying to map out every perfect curve and line about her. Killian felt Emma holding onto him too, meeting him beat for beat, before she finally pulled back, her breathing altered and her eyes wide with curiosity and lust.

“Wow. Well that’s one way to say hello,” Emma murmured, her fingertips coming up to cover her lips like she could still feel the kiss there. Meanwhile, Killian remembered that they were not alone, and as he spared a look around the restaurant he realized almost all eyes were on them. Luckily there didn’t appear to be any cameras, but damn if it didn’t bring the sad state of things barreling back at him.

“Sorry, Swan. I just… needed you.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Emma said as she took his hand and led him into the table, scooting in so they were side by side in the rounded booth. “I’m sure not. That was a hell of a kiss.”

“It was, wasn’t it?” Killian asked with a soft smile, even though he knew the answer already.

At that moment the waiter came over, asking them questions about wine and dinner and the like, and Killian allowed himself to get caught up in that even though he was distracted. He answered every query, and paid attention to everything Emma wanted as he usually did, but it was hard to be present right now. He was still reeling from the day he’d just had and trying to figure out what the bloody hell he should do.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Emma asked when they were alone again and Killian met her gaze, slightly terrified of having this conversation even as he took comfort in the fact that Emma knew him so well.

“How did you know I had something to say?”

“Well for one thing you haven’t let me go since you got here,” Emma mused, drawing attention to how close Killian had her. It was an intimate hold but also a possessive one, as if subconsciously he was afraid that she would slip through his grasp. He looked back at Emma, expecting her to be upset, but instead she only smiled as her hand came to cover his. “And I may or may not know about the press conference.”

“You saw it?” Killian asked, feeling himself blanch as he did.

“No. But Mary Margaret did. She didn’t have much to say though, except that my name was brought up.”

“Aye, it was. I wish it hadn’t been. I’m so sorry.”

“It was bound to happen, right?” Emma asked, taking this a lot better than he’d expected. “I mean we’re together, and, well I don’t know about you, but I don’t see that changing any time soon.”

“No, love, that’s not changing,” Killian replied, taking her hand in his and pressing a kiss to the top of it gently. “You know if I had my way this would be a forever kind of thing.”

Emma brightened at his words, looking as if she was about to say more, but then someone approaching the table caught her attention. Killian assumed it was the waiter again, but he never imagined who he’d find when he turned. For there was the devil in the flesh: Gold was here, and sporting a shit eating grin that put Killian’s whole being on red alert.

“Well look what we have here. If it isn’t Killian Jones and his latest fixation. How quaint.”

“What are you doing here, Gold?” Killian ground out, his words more a growl than anything else.

“I see your manners haven’t improved since your move, Killian. What a shame, since your pretty little date here seems sweet as can be.”

The words were designed to make Killian retaliate, but just as he was about to jump up Emma’s grip on his hand tightened. He looked at her and her face said it all: this wasn’t the place to get into a brawl, especially since Emma was in the dark right now, not knowing the full story. Even so, Killian knew he had to do something to get Gold out of here. He just didn’t know how the hell to do it. As he tried to think of something, Emma came to his rescue.

“I’m sorry, Mr….”

“Gold,” the snake of a man replied with feigned charisma. “And no need to introduce yourself, dearie. I know all about you. You’re Killian’s latest conquest, and I can assure you that you are one of many.”

“Did you just call me dearie?” Emma asked, sounding more put off by that than anything else even as Killian’s blood ran cold. “Seriously? It wasn’t bad enough you interrupted our dinner, you have to pull out the creepiest pet name to go with it?”

“Ooh, this one’s got some fire doesn’t she Jones?” Gold replied with a grin that was so sinister it looked like something out of a horror film. “I can see why you like her. Such spirit. Such passion.”

Hearing this monster of a man speak of his Emma and mock the things about her that he loved so much physically repulsed Killian. His whole being was begging to go toe to toe with Gold right here and right now. There was no doubt who would win in a fight, at least one that was fair. Perhaps it was primitive but Killian felt like if he could just beat enough sense into Gold the man would get it and give up, but that wasn’t the case. With men like this there was always a looming trick and some complex strategy. Getting a rise out of Killian would no doubt play into that, so Killian attempted to restrain himself.

“You’ve had your fun, Gold, but you and I both know you’ve already pushed things too far today.”

“Oh Sydney, right. Well he’s just so dedicated to the truth that one. There’s no way to rein him in,” Gold said with a showy smirk. “And we’re all obviously worried for you Killian. What with the drugs and the sex addiction and the -,”

“Enough!” Killian yelled, causing such a ruckus that in the moment thereafter the whole restaurant fell eerily silent. Killian instantly regretted his response in that moment, knowing Emma must be mortified at best and actually scared of him at worst. This was just about the worst thing he could imagine happening right now. At least Gold was quiet though, having flinched at Killian’s outburst. But the devil rallied enough to bid them a final farewell, trying to pretend he wasn’t intimidated even though Killian saw it in his beady little eyes.

“It was a pleasure meeting you Miss Swan. I’m sure we’ll be seeing each other again very soon.”

“I wouldn’t count on it,” Emma replied, and with one final look between them, Gold departed, leaving a stale aura of tension in his wake.

The sinking feeling that he’d ruined all the happiness he had with Emma made Killian feel physically sick. Not only had he just publically embarrassed her by causing a scene in front of all of these people, he hadn’t prepared her for the monsters that roamed in the world he’d left behind. She knew only the bare minimum about his past. She didn’t truly understand the vendetta and how it all started. Now, perhaps, she would think it best to cut her losses. After all, who would submit themselves to something like this when they’d done nothing themselves to deserve it?

“We should go,” Killian whispered only just loud enough so that she could hear it. It pained him to think of doing so, but staying here with all these people looking on would only make things worse for Emma.

“No,” she replied, prompting Killian to look at her. In her eyes he saw questions, but more than anything else he saw determination. “If we go he wins, and besides, you promised me a date.”

“You mean you still want to…? But there’s so much I have to say. I should have told you before, Emma, it’s just -,”

Emma broke his train of thought by cupping his cheek and pulling him down for a quick kiss. It didn’t last nearly as long as their first of the evening, but it told Killian so much more than he ever hoped to hear. Emma was trying to tell him that she was still here and that she wasn’t going anywhere, and only when they broke apart and she offered another of her small smiles did his growing anxiety that she would leave him start to fade.

“Whatever it is, it’ll be okay. It’ll all still be there after dinner, and I’m guessing I’ll feel better hearing about it if I’ve had a few glasses of really good wine and some to-die-for pasta first, right?”

“Probably,” Killian agreed, shaking his head at the idea that she could be so certain of him.

“Okay then. Now, tell me about the game. Twenty straight wins – that’s pretty incredibly if you ask me.”

Not as incredible as you are, Killian thought in his mind, but he bit back the words and three other little ones that would give away his whole heart. Instead he stuck to Emma’s plan, trying to enjoy the dinner as best as he could and knowing that whatever came next, Emma and him would be okay. And even though today had been a rough one, there was hope within it too – for today had shown him that the woman he loved was with him in this, and nothing could take that away from him, not even a demon like Gold.

Post-Note: There are no doubt a few of you right now staring at your screen in shock or dismay that I did not include their conversation. I swear I can actually hear some of you in my mind right now, but alas this is where the muse has led me. As you can imagine, this stuff with Gold isn’t over yet, and the next two chapters will actually be rather big ones, so big in fact that I’ve decided I want to try to post them together. My ideal is that in two weeks I’ll post one Saturday and one Sunday, but no matter when they come, please trust in my vision for this story and this couple – Emma and Killian always end up together in the end and it’s always a fluff fest when it’s one of my fics. This story WILL be a fluff fest, and since I have seven more chapters and an epilogue mapped out, there is plenty of time left for all the cuteness I have in mind. Anyway thanks to all of you for reading, and I hope you have a great rest of your day!

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shippingtheswann · 7 years

Photo

MODEL BEHAVIOR A Captain Swan modern AU by @shippingtheswann for the @captainswanbigbang 2017 year!

SUMMARY: Emma is an up and coming model living in LA with her best friend Ruby. Killian is a star baseball player for the LA Dodgers. Their families are close - and they grew up together. However, what happens after not seeing each other for 6 years - when they are forced back into a situation that requires them to reconnect and explore what was once there.

RATING: Explicit

WARNING: There will be smut later in the story, some mention of violence, hard language, mention of pregnancy loss

AUTHOR’S NOTE:

Special shout out to Monica @acaptainswaneternity - the artist with this story. I have loved everything she has done for me - so make sure to check her out! She made an amazing cover and the best image sets for each chapter.

Another huge shout out to Nicola @alocin209 who beta read everything and tried to keep me on target!

Can also be found on FF - Chapter One; Chapter Two; Chapter Three; Chapter Four; Chapter Five; Chapter Six

Morning always came too early for Emma. Sometimes she was a morning person but it was rare. Most of the time, Emma preferred to sleep in, relaxing in bed while she listened to the birds chirping outside of her window. Since she quit working at the diner, she slept in till ten most days. It was nice. Today though, she knew that wouldn't be an option.

Stretching slightly, she tried to familiarize herself with where she was. The sun wasn't streaming through the bedroom windows in its traditional way. It was with the movement from the other side of the bed that she remembered where she was.

She had fallen asleep snuggled close to Killian Jones, someone she used to dream about. She'd had fantasies of lying next to him, feeling his heartbeat beneath his chest and last night that fantasy came true. It wasn't in any way she thought it would happen. She definitely never fantasized about hearing about Killian's past fiancé cheating on him or him losing a baby. She also never imagined telling him what happened with Neal all those years ago. Yet, she smiled to herself at the thought of him fully accepting her, no matter what happened in their pasts.

Turning over, she took him in. The early morning sun wasn't too bright yet, casting a soft glow across his sleeping face. He looked peaceful, the first time she had actually seen him truly untroubled since they found each other on the plane. There had always been something behind his eyes, always some hard pain he was trying to hide. However when he slept, it was like all his troubles melted away.

If she was being truthful, she had never had a more restful night's sleep herself. She was used to tossing and turning for a while before falling asleep. Some nights, it would take her hours before her brain would shut off in order for her to sleep. Until last night, she had never been able to fall asleep so quickly and feel so tranquil.

Wrapped in Killian's arms, her head resting against his chest, his heartbeat lulled her to sleep almost instantly. She didn't dream; she felt rested, like how one can only feel after a deep sleep. She didn't feel the weight of the drama of the previous day, she didn't feel the dread of what the new day was going to bring. Instead, she just felt content. She wasn't concerned about anything really; sleeping with Kilian the night before was just what she needed.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, thoughts stirred about what had transpired the night before. She was thankful they had stopped their tryst but she was also a little put out by it. The physical attraction between the two was hard to deny and she did want to know exactly how he would feel with her. She wanted to experience what they would be like molded together. She knew that eventually they would find out just how explosive their chemistry could be, but she was still a little put out that it couldn't have been last night.

She knew though, it would have changed things; it would have made them finding their way back to each other different. They had just confessed some of their deepest secrets to each other. If they had given into their primal thoughts, they both would have regretted it this morning. Emma knew that it was a good thing Killian broke apart their kiss, that he had stopped them from going any further. Now they could really move forward, they could really see just what was between them. Was their attraction really just physical, based on the emotional damage they shared, or did they have a connection that was special?

Emma couldn't sit around any longer though, the clock on the bedside table was showing six thirty and her mother was a stickler for being on time. They were headed down to the family farm to meet her grandfather and step-grandmother. They would be seeing them tomorrow at Henry's graduation and party afterwards, but her grandfather insisted on them driving down to spend a day "getting back to their roots" as he put it. Emma really didn't understand it; she had never really spent much time at the farm.

Ever since her grandfather had retired from running the actual company, he had moved back to the farm and pretty much refused to leave the solitude of the isolated area near the base of the mountains. Her father took over the day to day operations of the business side of the corporation, while her grandfather sat on his porch and plowed the fields.

The family business was in cattle and it allowed them a quite luxurious life. When her mother was young, her father grew her grandfather's small business from being only based on the East Coast, to a much larger country wide corporation that continued to grow even today. When Mary Margaret married David, her mother's father retired and had David take over the business. He then decided to move the headquarters to DC so that her father could go back to what he really enjoyed, getting his hands dirty. Emma knew her father missed working in the fields, missed the daily duties of working on a cattle farm, but she also knew her father took pride in running the business and providing a future for his family.

Emma was a bit thankful that the women in the family weren't expected to take over the business. Instead, that fell on Henry. Her brother was slated to take over the business when he finished college. She didn't want to know what kind of pressure that was being put on her brother; yet at the same time she knew he could handle it. He had a flare for taking a situation and making it into something special. She knew her brother really loved to write, but also knew that he wanted to work for the family and help continue on their legacy. Emma hoped that he could find time to do both.

Prying herself from the bed, she took one last look at Killian's sleeping form. Through the night, they had worked themselves apart but now that she was standing, she could see that he didn't really move too far from her. His body never really left her side and somehow she knew they stayed connected even while they slept. She hated to leave him this early, hated to get out of the bed but she had to get ready and hopefully she would be able to see him again before she left for the day. She knew they would need to talk about what happened, knew they would eventually have to figure out what the hell was going on between them. She just hoped that it was sooner rather than later.

As she entered the bathroom, closing the door and turning on the shower, she couldn't help the fear that crept into her mind. She was worried again, about what everything meant. She hated the unknown. She hated that she didn't quite know where they stood with each other. She knew Killian didn't regret anything they did and she knew deep down that he did care about her. Yet she couldn't stop thinking about what exactly they were to each other and what everything meant.

She tried her damndest to forget about those negative thoughts, blaming Neal for dredging up all the fears that she was having. She was also blaming Killian because of his past behavior. If both of them had just been truthful with her from the start, if Killian had just told her about Milah, if Neal had just told her he was unhappy, then she wouldn't be so scared of relationships. She wouldn't be seeing all the negativity in what should have been a happy reunion.

The shower helped a bit, the hot water washing away all the horrible things she was worried about. She let the water soothe her. She was strong, always had been. So what if Neal had fucked her over? So what if Killian had hurt her in the past? She wasn't the same person as before and neither were they. She was brave enough to walk away from Neal and out of his life. She was confident enough to admit to Killian she had feelings for him and allowed herself to act on the chemistry that was obviously still very present. She wasn't going to let her fears stop her. She hadn't done so before and she wasn't going to start now.

No matter what happened in her past, no matter how many times she ran from her problems, she wasn't going to let them stop her from living. When Killian broke her heart all those years ago, she continued on and made something of herself and her life. She didn't allow the pain to get in the way or the fear of additional heartbreak stop her from living her life. When Neal cheated she ran, but it was so she could move on, so she could regain her focus on life.

Her past didn't define her and neither did her fears.

She waited in her room for as long as she could, hoping that Killian would come to her after he woke. She got ready in the meantime, keeping her mind and hands occupied. She heard the shower come on soon after she got out. She knew he had to report to training today and she knew he would need her in some way. She had been up almost an hour now and her mother wanted them to be on the road before eight.

A soft knock came, with only minutes to spare before she knew her mother would come looking for her. Killian was standing in the doorway of their shared bathroom, with nothing but a towel wrapped low around his waist. Emma's thoughts drifted into a place she knew it shouldn't go, not when there was nothing she could do about it.

Even though she saw him shirtless last night, seeing him in the morning light was something completely different. The previous night, Emma silently cursed baseball for all of Killian's troubles. Even if he was a good player, even if he loved the game, it caused him so much pain and she blamed it. If he didn't have baseball in his life, maybe his emotions wouldn't have been so conflicted. Now though, she could say that baseball did some good. He was built but in a slight way that accented every muscle he had. He was really good looking! His face wasn't clean shaven, which she didn't expect. She thought he would have shaved it off for the first day back.

"Hey," he said, breaking the silence.

"Morning," her response was almost a whisper as she turned a bit to focus back on doing her hair. She had spent some of the time quickly blow drying part of her hair, just enough to give it perfect waves.

"How did you sleep?" she heard the question asked. He was still in the doorway, almost like he was worried about talking to her.

"Like a baby actually," she smiled, turning to motion him in with her head.

He stood there for a while, not moving. She hadn't seen him so unsure of himself before, except for some slight behaviors last night. Right then, he didn't seem so confident.

"It's OK Killian, you can come in," she added, hoping to get him to lighten up.

"Swan, I wanted to apologize for last night," he started, moving to sit down on her still made bed. His hair was still wet even though Emma heard the shower turn off at least fifteen minutes earlier. He must have been pacing around his room before coming to talk to her.

"Killian," she began, before she was cut off.

"No, please love. I allowed myself to let my past rule my life again. I allowed her to still get to me. I tried to be a gentleman to you, I didn't want you to feel pressured at all," he tried to explain.

Emma actually chuckled a bit. He had stopped them before anything went too far, he had promised not to do anything she didn't want to. He was never anything but a gentleman, yet there he was, worried about his actions.

"You were a gentleman. Killian, I've said it before, I don't regret anything we've done. I especially don't regret last night. It actually felt good to get everything off my chest. No one really knows about Neal," she offered.

"I never really told anyone the full story about Milah either," he added quietly.

"I know what you went through Killian, you know I understand exactly how you are feeling. I just want to be there for you," she said, moving from her vanity to his side.

"Thanks love. I am sorry though," he persisted.

"Thank you, but there really isn't anything to apologize for. So, you ready for the day?" she asked.

"Surprisingly, no. I am not really sure what to expect. I loved the game, yet after last night, after everything, I just don't know if I am ready to get back out there. Does that make sense?" he pondered.

"Yes," she began, "You're nervous, which is understandable, but you did love the game once, you just need to learn to love it again. You deserve the chance to start over, to start fresh. Use this time to rebuild Killian. Use these three weeks to not only build up your game, but to build up yourself too."

He leaned over a placed a kiss on her lips, a chaste but sweet kiss.

"Thank you," he said, his lips hovering above hers.

"I meant that for the both of us actually. We both should use these weeks to start over. We deserve it, don't you think?" she wondered, with a smile on her face.

Before anything else could be said, her mother's voice came from downstairs, telling her that she had three minutes to get herself downstairs.

Emma stood up and walked back over to her vanity to get her purse that thankfully had all the items in it she would need to survive the long day ahead of her.

"Good luck at practice. Just let it all go, don't think about anything, just let your instinct take over," she told him, flashing him a smile as she moved towards the door.

In an instant though, she was whipped around by a strong set of arms, pulling her close. His lips were on her once again. The towel across his hips left nothing to the imagination. The moan escaped her lips without warning. Her hands snaking around his body, pulling her closer to him. If the next three weeks were anything like this, she was glad to be home.

"Have a good time," he whispered to her as he pulled away, leaving her breathless against the door as he moved back into his room.

She barely had any time to compose herself before she had to rush down to her waiting family.

The drive down to Blanchard Farms was a long one, filled with her mother and father singing along to musicals in the front seat, while Henry and Emma groaned in the back. It was a rule that headphones were not allowed in the car, allowing them for "family time" as her mother once said. Thinking back, Emma laughed because it seemed car rides were the only time her mother ever really wanted to talk to or be around her children.

Her father had a wonderful voice. Her mother could carry a tune, to a point, but probably shouldn't make it her day job.

Blanchard Farms was located in rural central Virginia, about two and a half hours from their home in Alexandria. It had at one time been a small ten acre farm that Emma's great great grandfather owned. Over the years it had grown into what seemed like a small town. The farm itself was over a thousand acres. Their main business was cattle but there was also a small vineyard on the property. It was shared with the neighboring property, owned by Emma's uncle, who himself had another thousand acres. There were also old ruins on the property that house a summer Shakespeare program and many summer events. Her father was the CEO of the company, with other family members running the day to day operations of the actual farm. Her grandfather's house was located in a remote area of the farm, away from the daily activity where he had his own little garden that he took care of.

Emma didn't really spend time there as a kid, but did enjoy the farm. She enjoyed the flowers that grew on the fields and the cows that roamed freely. She loved her grandfather as well.

Leonardo Blanchard, who only wanted anyone to call him Leo, was a kind soul. He reminded her a lot of her father. He really enjoyed the hard work that the farm allowed him. He hated the business side of the company, even though he did it for almost thirty years. Every weekend, without fail, Leo would return to the farm from the city, spending the whole weekend in the dirt doing what he really loved. Emma remembered her father doing something similar. When she was younger, they would travel down to the farm so her father could get an understanding of the state of the business, her mother would do some events with the local DAR or other organizations and Emma would play in the pond and explore the farm.

They stopped coming down around the time Leo remarried. He was once married to her grandmother, Ava. She wasn't a mean person and Emma did love her, but she was similar to her mother. Ava was involved in so much in the area. Emma could see where her mother got her determination and devotion to charities. Ava was well known, especially within the church and Mary Margaret was following in those footsteps well.

However, a few years after Henry was born, Ava died suddenly. Within months, her grandfather remarried to a much younger woman who Emma could remember seeing around the farm a lot. Regina and her mother, Cora, knew Ava through the charities they both worked on. Cora was a bitch of a woman. She was an old school debutante; she came from money that was running dry and on her fourth husband. She believed money was power and she craved power. Turns out, Emma's family wasn't that different from other families. As Mary Margaret followed in Ava's footsteps, Regina followed in her mother's. Emma couldn't fully blame Regina for her behavior as she got to know her; it was easy for anyone to see the influence Cora had over her daughter.

Still, Regina tried too hard, did too many sketchy things and tried to force herself into the family business a little too much for Mary Margaret's taste. Emma never saw her as a member of the family, just someone who was invading, like a weed.

Emma can still remember how she got her nickname, the Evil Queen. Emma was telling Ruby about the first time Emma and her family met Regina. Her grandfather had married her without anyone knowing, so one weekend when they showed up for one of their getaway weekends, everyone was shocked to meet their new grandmother, as Regina called herself. Later that night, Regina cooked everyone a special meal, including a crisp apple pie as the crowning dessert. Either she didn't know about her mother's deathly allergy or she didn't care. Ruby interrupted the story, coming up with this long conspiracy theory that Regina and her mother were after Leo's money and that, just like in Snow White, Regina was jealous of Mary Margaret so she tried to poison her. It wasn't that far of a stretch for Emma to think parts of the story could be true. Her step-grandmother and mother were very close in age and everyone always commented on how beautiful Mary Margaret was.

The nickname stuck.

Since that first night, Regina continued doing more and more annoying things that just added to Emma's extreme dislike of the woman. It didn't help that as Emma got older, she heard her mother speaking to a family friend about Regina's alleged affair with Leo before Ava died, which was supposedly at Cora's suggestion. Emma stopped coming down to the farm about a year before graduation, simply because she couldn't stand being around Regina.

Still, her grandfather loved Emma, even if she hadn't seen him in years. He kept up with Emma in LA. Every month, there was a wired check to her bank account of about two thousand dollars from him. It helped her at times, but mostly she put it away in a savings account. She didn't like to use the money, as she didn't want to give her mother any reason to think her following her dreams of modeling meant she couldn't support herself. Her mother already had a strong enough opinion on the topic. For the longest time, Emma thought they were just sending her money because her mother didn't believe in her. One day though, Emma got a call from her grandfather, explaining that he was sending her the money so she didn't have to worry and could focus on modeling in her free time during college. He was always supportive of her.

She knew Regina didn't appreciate her inheritance slowly leaking away to Emma and Henry so knowing this only furthered Emma into accepting the money.

"Welcome back darling," her grandfather called to her as they exited the car and walked up towards the house.

"Thanks pop," she replied, folding herself into her grandfather's hug. He still smelled the same all these years later.

"It's lovely to see you all," Regina sneered from behind them. Not a single one of the Nolan clan acknowledged her presence at first. Regina's resting bitch face was on full display.

Emma just smiled instead of actually replying to Regina. Henry was the only one to actually turn and say hello. For some reason, Regina always had a liking for Henry, so having him gravitate towards her and placate her mood was perfect.

Thankfully, Emma's phone rang in her purse, giving her a reprieve from the tense situation.

"Hey Red!" she called into her phone

"My God Emma! I've been trying to reach you for hours!" her friend exclaimed on the other end of the phone.

"Sorry Ruby, we were headed down to the farm this morning. I think grandpa Leo wanted more individual time with us before tomorrow," she explained.

"So that means the Evil Queen is there. How is she?" The sarcasm in Ruby's voice wasn't hard to miss.

"Evil as always. I don't know why, but she has always liked Henry. When he is around, she isn't as bad. Let's hope her attitude softens as the day goes on," Emma retorted.

"How is everything else though? How is your mother? How was the flight?" Ruby's questions were coming at her in rapid fire.

Emma turned to glance back at the house. Regina and her mother had moved inside and Henry was walking down towards the pasture where his horse was. Her father and grandfather were starting to disappear around the house, probably in search of the foreman who lived outback in the house built for him and his family a few years ago. Emma was friends with the foreman's son, August, and he had even asked her out a few times, but Emma had always said no.

"Pretty good actually. You know, I thought coming home would be this horrible thing and I would hate it, but turns out it's actually been rejuvenating. Mom and I had a bit of a heart to heart and I think I understand her better. Things are still a bit rocky between us, people can't change overnight, but I can see her trying to understand me better. She seems to want to support me and my dreams, so we will see. The flight was…. Good," she finished, hoping to come up with a word that described the flight but didn't give much away to Ruby. She loved her friend, but she did tend to meddle and overreact to things.

"Good…." Ruby started, Emma knowing it was leading to a question.

"Yes, it was fine. Pretty empty actually," trying to deter her friend from her hidden message. She still wasn't sure what was happening between her and Killian, so she didn't really want her friend knowing what happened.

"Emma, I've known you for over five years. Something happened on the flight, something you aren't telling me. Spill!" Ruby prodded.

"Remember how I told you about Killian?" Emma began. She had talked to Ruby one drunken night soon after they first met. She told him how Killian had broken her heart and how even though she was heartbroken and sometimes hated him, she did wish him the best. She was more upset that she thought she wasn't good enough for him.

"Yeah, what about him?" Ruby asked. Emma loved that even when Emma was telling her all about Killian, Ruby never called him a bastard. She never seemed angry with him, but only seemed to support Emma's emotions and told her she understood. Ruby got that Emma could never really hate Killian, that even if Emma was pissed, she couldn't deep down hate him. She was just hurt. Ruby told her it was all justified. The only other people Emma had ever talked to about Killian only ever had bad things to say about him. That always frustrated her as it wasn't what she wanted.

"Well, he was on the flight, the only other person in first class actually," she began, then recanted the tale.

Emma never hid anything from Ruby, even though she wanted to. However, once the tale started to spill out, she couldn't stop. She felt better as she told the story, from the second she sat down on the flight to the kiss he gave her this morning.

Ruby must have been listening intently because she never said a word the whole time Emma spoke.

"I don't know Ruby, my thoughts are everywhere. I know there is still attraction there, it's undeniable. But what about everything that has happened? I came out here to clear my head and it's more foggy than ever," she finished.

"Emma, I'm gonna tell you something that you already know. Forget everything that happened in the past. You left LA to get away from Neal, not to clear your head. You left so you wouldn't be tested by him. You've gone back to him before, all because he was relentless. You left LA because of Neal, that's the only reason. So screw Neal, screw the past. You have this attraction to Killian, so what? Act on it if you want, or don't. But don't let your past screw with you. Don't let your history with him screw with it either. You said you want to clear your mind, so do that. Don't worry so much and enjoy the next three weeks." Ruby always provided sound advice.

She was right. Emma kept saying she was out here to clear her head after Neal, but she really was just out here to stay away from temptation. She was just using Henry's graduation as an excuse to get away from it all.

Ruby told her to screw the past, and that was exactly what she was going to do.

"Thanks Ruby! How is it you always know exactly what to say?" Emma responded.

"I know you, that's how. You are always over thinking everything, even when you don't know it. But I'm serious. Enjoy the next three weeks. Forget your past and just live," Ruby responded.

"I'll try. I'll check in with you in a few days. Love you Rubes," Emma said, knowing that it was getting close to lunch.

"Love you too Emma. Have a good time," Ruby said, ending the call.

"Emma! It's time for lunch, come inside!" she heard Regina yell from the front porch. Perfect timing Emma thought to herself. If she could take a gamble, she would say that Regina had sat her mother and her directly in sight of Emma, so Regina could keep an eye on her. Regina always had to have control and there was no way she would allow Emma any more moments alone.

Lunch was a long, drawn out affair. Regina commanded the attention for most of the meal, retelling stories of her childhood whenever Emma's grandfather asked Emma or Henry a question. It didn't matter that the questions were for his granddaughter and grandson, Regina had a story to tell.

When Leo asked Emma if she had gotten the chance to hit up Disneyland, before Emma had a chance to tell him she went every year with her friends, like a tradition, Regina piped in with a story of her own. She recounted how every year her friends would always drive down to the local amusement park. Emma rolled her eyes, which thankfully Regina didn't see.

This was how meals in the Blanchard household always went.

"So Emma, did you meet anyone special out in LA?" Regina questioned.

It took Emma by surprise actually, that Regina would be willing to ask her anything. However, while looking at Regina's gaze, Emma understood that the woman really didn't care. Either Regina knew something about Emma's past and wanted to embarrass her, or she wanted another way to keep the focus and attention on her. If Emma said yes, she would be required to tell a story, probably ending with Regina recanting a tale of what she would have done. Or, if Emma said no, Regina would still go into a tale of her past love life, again shifting focus back to her.

"I thought I had, but turns out it wasn't right," Emma answered, praying that Regina's response would be a short one.

However, something answered her silent prayer, and Regina's voice wasn't what she heard answering her.

"You know, that reminds me a bit of your father and I actually," her mother provided.

Emma had heard stories when she was younger about her father and mother's destined True Love, but she had forgotten some of the story over the years.

"What do you mean?" Henry pondered.

"Well, when I was a bit younger than Emma, I thought I had found the love of my life, and it wasn't your dad," her mother began. "I thought I was destined to be with this one boy. However, for whatever reason, it just didn't work out. At first I was heartbroken. Do you remember daddy?"

"Of course I do darling," her grandfather answered his daughter, "you cried for days. No matter what your mother and I told you, it didn't matter. But in the end, I was right."

Her grandfather laughed at his response. It was just like him.

"You told me that if it was meant to be, it would be, and if not, that just meant something more special would come along. A week later, they hired David to start helping out with some of the cattle," her mother turned, beaming at her husband.

"I remember that day like it was yesterday. I came into work and there she was, sitting down by the pond, butterflies flying around her and two deer walking close by. It was very early in the morning and I thought I was dreaming," her father added, smiling.

Emma used to hate hearing this story, time after time, but today it helped some how. She had been worried about all the mistakes in the past that she had made, worried about the mistakes Killian had made. But in the end, none of that really mattered. What mattered was the here and now.

"Love comes along when you don't expect it, sometimes when you don't even want it or need it. I wasn't too keen on your father at first. I had told myself if I couldn't have my old beau, then I didn't want love at all. Still, he persisted, he stuck around and here we are." The love in her mother's voice was actually just what Emma needed.

Why was it that her mother was somehow always right? Emma shouldn't be looking for love, shouldn't even want it, yet Killian had appeared. Maybe it wasn't love between them, but she wasn't about to deny everything she was feeling for him simply because of the past, what people would say, or what may happen. It may end up in a shit storm, but it could also be something special that could help her get back to her true self.

Emma thought back to a time when they were younger, when her heart got truly broken. Thinking about it now, she knew what she felt with Neal and what her emotions were going through was nothing compared to what she felt when Killian walked out of her life. She was hurt back then, but maybe it wasn't right then. Maybe, like her mother, she wasn't quite ready for real love.

This time, things could be different. They were both unattached, they were both adults who had experienced the world. They were both mature and responsible. Maybe this time, she was ready.

It was in that moment, with Emma seated at her grandfather's dinner table, that she decided the moment they got home that night she was going to ask Killian Jones out on a date. She wasn't going to let fear dictate her life. She wasn't going to question anything. She was just going to let things happen as they were destined to be. She was going to let fate take over.

#CSBB #Captain Swan Big Bang #Captain Swan #Captain Swan Fan Fiction #Captain Swan FF

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warriorgays · 7 years

Text

sometimes I think about Liebgott and my intense attachment to him and the… discontinuity, I guess (?) that I feel between my understanding of Liebgott and fandom’s understanding of Liebgott.

like, I am 100% not trying to discredit anyone’s headcanon or attachment to him as a character. we all have our own backgrounds and we bring that to our interpretations. that’s legit. someone else’s opinion of him is just as valid as mine. I thought about putting this under a cut b/c I didn’t want to seem like I was pushing my interpretation on anyone, and then I decided not to, and then I decided I had to just because it got so fucking long. okay. here goes.

but like, for one thing, I’ve seen a loooot of posts/fic/etc that seem to imply an attachment to Webster is the default. like of course there’s a connection between them, even people who don’t think of them as OTP have a strong sense of a tie between Liebgott and Webster. and I… do not? I had this conversation with a friend the other day, I flat-out don’t think Webster really respects Liebgott and that kind of bothers me. the scene with the commandant, Webster’s attitude is just so dismissive and hypocritical, it angers me every time I watch it. and The Last Patrol just seems like… it’s politics. it’s Webster playing politics to get back in the group, and Liebgott being a player in it. I’m not knocking that, it’s a dynamic like any other and sure, Webster can want to have friends just like any other person. but The Last Patrol is like the LAST episode that comes to mind if I’m laying out my characterization for Liebgott (okay maybe not literally, but comparatively), whereas, given the percentage of Webgott fics in the fandom, it’s probably one of the defining episodes for him in a lot of peoples’ minds. I just don’t understand it as a ship.

which, hey, again, I don’t need to understand it–Lord knows I have a fair number of ships that make people scratch their heads–but it’s a weird thing to be conscious of, because I know that puts me in the minority of Liebgott fans.

the other thing is that I don’t think I’ve ever thought about Liebgott without his Jewishness being central to my interpretation of him. not once. which isn’t to say that I think of him as “just the Jew” or even that I always think of him in religious terms, because I usually don’t. there’s a lot of different ways to be Jewish and I think Liebgott definitely fits a certain type, for those who are familiar with the types.

but like… for every Liebgott ship I have (and I have many), and every verse, I have an idea of how Liebgott would feel about this kind of interfaith relationship–and because I got real tired of that real quick, I have a few ships where I’ve arbitrarily decided that I want the other person to be Jewish, whether by birth or by choice. (although I’ve never written the latter kind, because tbh I really don’t think most people would be interested in a fic that’s that invested in Jewish themes.) and every fic I’ve written in canon has dealt with his reaction to the Shoah, and honestly, one of the main reasons I haven’t written much post-canon Liebgott fic is because I am really really loathe to take a character who, in canon, expresses a desire to marry a Jewish girl and have lots of children, and decide that I’m not going to give him that, especially since post-war he’ll know that almost a full half of the world’s Jewish population has been wiped out.

and like, it bugs me sometimes when I see people paint him as just The Angry Guy because the war means more for him than for most of the men he’s serving with, it’s intensely personal in a way it’s not for the others. and likewise it bugs me a little too when I see people stress his “Germanness”–it’s the same thing with Erik Lehnsherr, people play up his national identity and often don’t critically examine the way in which his ethnoreligious identity complicates that–and he’s not even German by birth! He speaks German. His family is probably of German or Austrian extraction, but there were a lot of Jews in the first half of the 20th century who would identify with their ethnoreligious group over any European nationalist identity, because the last half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th were some of the most deeply, violently antisemitic periods of the history of the world.

and–well, okay, it’s a universally accepted fact that fiction, whether original fiction or fanfiction, treats bilingual characters in totally unrealistic ways. so no matter what it’s probably unrealistic for a California-born person to revert to German when saying things like “My god!” or “darling,” but far be it from me to tell people they shouldn’t write it. but anyway, there are indications in canon that German isn’t Liebgott’s primary language or that he’s not totally fluent; he asks people to slow down a few times, isn’t familiar with one or two words, and remarks that Webster (definitely not a primary speaker) knows it as well as he does. but I’ve often wondered if it’s possible that his familiarity with German is at least partially due to familiarity with Yiddish. I mean, they’re different languages, and it’s not obligatory for every Ashkenazi Jew to know Yiddish, but still, it’s something that would be interesting to explore, their relationship to each other and his relationship to them and how that might change during the war.

and that’s just the kind of thing that I don’t think other people think about a whole lot when it comes to Liebgott. the non-Hanukkah related Jewish things. like I have occasionally read Webgott fic when I’m really jonesing for Liebgott content, and I’ve read almost all of the Liebgott fic in general, and… idk.

here’s a short list of questions I’ve asked myself about Liebgott: “has he ever worn tzitzit? is there a mezuzah on his door? does he try and pray after he finds the camp? what does he talk about with the prisoners afterwards? does he help any of them finish the Shema as they are dying? does he ever wrap tefillin? does his family get the Forverts? how did he feel about America First activists? the Soviet Union? the Non Aggression Pact? what religion does he have printed on his dog tags? how does he feel sitting in the convent in The Breaking Point? does he read Hebrew? What song does he prefer, Hinei Ma Tov or Oseh Shalom? has he ever kept kosher, and how does he feel about keeping kosher, because ffs there’s more than bacon? what’s his favorite holiday–Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Simchat Torah, Chanuka, Tu BiShvat, Purim, Pesach, Lag B’Omer, Shavuot, or that one that no one ever remembers? How does he feel about the fact that about half of America’s Jews live in New York and he’s on a whole other coast? is his family Reform, Conservative, or Orthodox? labor, socialist, communist, Zionist? how often does he go to shul? what does his family eat on Shabbos? how strictly do they keep Shabbos? sweet or salty gefilte fish? do they live in a Jewish neighborhood? what’s his Hebrew name?”

and I often feel like, if I asked most people any of these questions, they would have no idea whatsoever what I’m talking about. which… hey, that’s life. I had to study a lot to understand what all of these things mean. but now that they’re a part of my life, they’re a part of my life, and the fact that I can ask myself these questions about Liebgott, and come up with answers, are totally wrapped up in the reasons I identify with him and love him so much. and even beyond these simple(ish) questions, I approach him in writing with a whole lot of spiritual, ethical assumptions and references behind me, and I’m often concerned that a lot of those things are missing, and that if I’m not being annoyingly, blatantly obvious, people will miss the flags I put up that say hey! this is a Jewish character! this is important! it strikes me that a lot of people just don’t know very much about Judaism; I’ve read some things in fic that make me go ???? because it’s obvious people are trying but it just… there’s a discord. like we’re operating on different wavelengths, and the sounds we’re hearing aren’t the same. people use Hanukkah things because they know about Hanukkah but they use it in ways that don’t… make sense, even if they’re not technically wrong, or they’ll bring up fun facts about Judaism/Jewish law/the Bible that aren’t consistent with Jewish interpretation.

idk. I thought I would reach some kind of conclusion by the end of this post but I haven’t. I just want to talk about Joseph Liebgott 5ever and I never know if the person I’m talking with knows the same Joseph Liebgott that I do.

#liebgott #jews in fandom

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arcanevalves · 7 years

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Persona 5

What I Played: I initially started the game on Normal, but then dropped to Easy when I realized I had zero desire to lose any progress in a 90 hour game. Based mostly on blind play, I tried my best to maximize confidants and social stat grinding, although later on I did look up best methods to increase kindness. I used a persona calculator to solve the Strength confidant and otherwise just blind fired with combinations. I successfully maxed out about half of the confidants and pursued a romance with the Star confidant. I did reach the True ending and used a guide to avoid the Bad or Good endings (although I guess I probably could have reloaded the saves right beforehand, shrug).

I’m going to divide my thoughts into three areas: P5 as art, the thematic content based on the characters, and P5 as a game.

BLESS ART

Whatever negative things I might have to say about P5 in the other sections, it should be emphasized that the visual and auditory design of the game is astounding. While I was initially concerned that the menus might be too visually distracting, I overcame my own bewilderment and appreciated how they flowed and also matched the content. I am not in any way a visual artist, but the way that the game picked out a color scheme and stuck with it (here, mostly red and black) really appealed to me in terms of unifying the game visually. When the game stepped away from this, it was often for compelling reasons that stand out because they broke away from the mold (e.g., many of the All-Out Attack splash screens).

Likewise, the music is very pleasing and Last Surprise is up there with all-time great RPG battle themes. The use of instrumental and vocal versions of songs was also very compelling as I would find myself humming along to a repeated song only to realize that a vocalist had now rolled up on the scene. The use of new songs in the later palaces also helps keep the game fresh. Some of the music does get stale towards the end, but this is perhaps the unavoidable consequence of a 90 hour game. In this it reminded me a bit of Xenogears - an excellent soundtrack made to stretch over a very long game.

CHARACTERS

I am not truly convinced that the character arcs in Persona 5 pay off in the end. In particular, the main character’s arc is the most anomalous because in the end, none of his confidants really mattered? The narrative presents his criminal record as his greatest problem and, accordingly, the one that is resolved in the final act of the story as the substantial evidence is presented to overturn the record. However, despite the main character’s relationships with the various confidants and player characters and, in particular, a romantic relationship, the main character returns to parents and a hometown that he simply did not appear to miss? The main character never expresses any desire to return home nor any fondness for his parents. Perhaps I am overlooking some assumption that the main character desires to return home, but if any there were any inference I took from the opening, it is that the main character was incensed about receiving unjust treatment from all parties involved, including his parents and hometown.

A critical flaw in the game is, unfortunately, that none of the confidants tie in or pay off in the main narrative except for the ones that are tied to the main plot (Sae, Goro, Morgana, Fool). I happened to pick a romance option in Hifumi who was mostly isolated from the main narrative, but I can imagine choosing Ann or Makoto or Haru or Futaba and feeling somewhat bewildered at various interactions. Furthermore, some of the confidants I simply did not finish and so I feel less able to evaluate their journey because the game’s constrained calendar system simply left me unable to finish them out. Characters like Yusuke, Haru, Chihaya, Makoto just didn’t get finished and I was not going to a NG+ playthrough to discover how their subplots end up. Kawakami I should have finished but apparently her confidant subplot cannot be finished because you can’t do that shit once MC isn’t in school anymore.

As for the characters that I did finish, some were satisfying and some were not? Interestingly, many of the confidants required the use of Mementos to solve some problem and then this clued in that particular character to the Phantom Thief nature of the MC. This wanton use of the Metaverse to solve problems for friends struck me as an even bigger reason that the righteousness of the use of the Metaverse to steal hearts is largely left unexamined. I was initially very excited by the appearance of Goro because I thought he was going to push on this issue because he believed from working within the system. However, Goro is ultimately a clever narrative puzzle (and I did very much enjoy the November surprise) rather than a voice for pushing back on the ideology and actions of the Phantom Thieves. The morality of stealing hearts is ultimately thrown out the window.

Ultimately, the main thematic pull of P5 seems to be on placing blame on all of us collectively for speaking truth to power. The real villain was not any single specific abusive teacher or corrupt politician, but the collective will to accept injustice in exchange for comfort. However, the final dungeon and set of encounters still left me unconvinced what exactly our collective action was to this. How much was the final boss a metaphor for battling the collective will and how much was actual SMT plot exposition that a demon hijacked our collective consciousnesses. I’m not against the idea of putting the onus on all of us together to speak truth to power and perhaps this is exactly what the final subsequent sequence demonstrated: the collective action of the MC’s confidants was enough to overcome the injustice he bore in the form of a criminal record. This is the meaning I can take from the story that is the most satisfying and I think encourages us to rely on our friends and family and push them to not accept injustice in our everyday lives.

Personally, I found the romance with Hifumi to be very satisfying and this path was cemented for me when she appeared as an option on the Hawaii trip. I often find myself segmenting parts of my life apart and Hifumi’s separation from any other character in the game was deeply appealing to me as was her generally reserve demeanor. That dress is also cute, I will not front.

Additional note: P5, which spent some time pointing out examples of oppression very similar to real life, overlooked oppression relating to gender and gay stereotypes. Ann’s appearance and storyline is confused and not at all coherent or satisfying. Kawakami’s is likewise. Lastly, the two men who appear in Shinjuku and at the beach are aberrations and the blackest mark on this game.

P5 AS A GAME

I have only played Persona 1 and have not yet visited any other Persona or SMT game. Generally, I enjoyed the dungeon layouts and navigation and I also further enjoyed the flow of battles as the game initially presents it. What the game, however, fails to tell the player is that in the end game, enemies will have no weaknesses and so, simply, stat buffing and enemy debuffing is simply more important at the end of a long road in which covering elemental weaknesses was more important. I found this to be very frustrating. Coming from mostly playing FF, I often assume that status effects simply do not apply to bosses and so never bother with those and instead look for elemental weaknesses.

Initially, I thought this would be a pleasant game which gave me the opportunity to pace myself and do the dungeon or confidant or social stat building as I enjoyed it. However, by the summer I had begun to realize this was not a leisurely stroll. This was one of the most ridiculous min-max efficiency experiences I’ve ever encountered. Budgeting time to maximize social stats and confidant affection over 90 hours (including looking up the correct confidant responses to maximize confidant efficiency) is ridiculous and I would have been much more happy if the game had simply invented a way for me to repeat days or otherwise get the rest of the social links without having to do an entire NG+ playthrough. Knowing his now, I imagine my approaches to P3 and P4 when I get to them will be with a guide that points out to me these unknowable efficiencies so I can get on with my life.

P5 is beautiful, but I think it would be even better were it not chained to the SMT way of battling and the calendar system that has come to define the series.

#persona 5 #ps4 #complete

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entergamingxp · 4 years

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DualShockers’ Favorite Video Games of 2020 (So Far)

July 31, 2020 1:00 PM EST

Now that we’re halfway through 2020, the DualShockers staff shares the games that have been the highlights of the year so far.

As we’ve already seen so far, 2020 has been a very unusual year for video games. In light of the coronavirus pandemic, which has caused numerous delays and cancelled most of the events that we’d traditionally see during the year for the games industry, this year has still brought us a ton of gaming experiences worth celebrating and sharing. Given that the next-gen consoles are on the horizon later this year, the first half of 2020 has already had some generation-defining games worth playing, and we still have several months to go for 2020.

Now that the first half of the year is behind us, the DualShockers staff has gathered together to share some of our favorite games of 2020 so far. While we’ve already discussed a lot of the games that we’re considering for our Game of the Year awards for this year, this time around we’re focusing on each staff member’s highlights for games that have been released in the first half of 2020. From some of the most acclaimed games of the year to hidden gems that are worth a look, here are the games that DualShockers‘ staff have made 2020 an exciting year for video games.

Nick Blain, Video Editor

Animal Crossing: New Horizons

New Horizons was the first Animal Crossing game that I’ve committed to since the original back on the GameCube, and I adore it. It really makes no sense why I like it. The tasks are menial and there’s no central objective to accomplish. Yet, Animal Crossing: New Horizons is the most I’ve ever been invested in the series yet. I find myself getting lost in the charm of its harmonious world. There’s just something about the mainline Animal Crossing games’ design that is always so cozy. For a brief couple of hours I can forget the outside world and be lost in its brilliance. Animal Crossing makes things feel normal.

Final Fantasy VII Remake

I have a weird confession to make: while I love Final Fantasy as series, I never found Final Fantasy VII to be all that compelling. Even replaying the original before the remake came out, I found it to be a chore at some parts, so my expectations for the remake weren’t extremely high. Playing through it, I couldn’t have been more wrong. The little things that Final Fantasy VII Remake does to flesh out the characters and overall world help give so much more context to even the original Final Fantasy VII. At times, it feels like it’s not only paying homage to what came before it, but also feels like an FFVII sequel unto itself. Much like the RE2 remake that came out last year, Final Fantasy VII Remake proves that a remake can be more than just a glossy new coat of paint; it can also be a re-evaluation of what came before.

The Last of Us Part II

What can I say that hasn’t already been said about this amazing game? The Last of Us Part II is just as grueling of a tale as what came before. Never has a game actually made me feel bad for fulfilling a QTE. Although, underneath that rough exterior is a beautiful inspection of love, pain, and sacrifice. At the end of The Last of Us, I felt that I had seen the end of the story and was absolutely fine with it. However, Naughty Dog proved that there was a significantly more meaningful story to delve into with Joel and Ellie. If they felt that they have more story to tell I’m here for it; but again, I don’t think that there has to be.

What I admire about Naughty Dog is that if there’s nothing left to say: that’s it. Chapter over, book closed. You can just tell the passion that was behind the team at Naughty Dog when they were developing this game. Naughty Dog is really proving that video games can be more than they set out to be initially. I can’t wait for more.

Kris Cornelisse, Staff Writer

Deep Rock Galactic

“Dwarves in Space.” Anything you can think of that would fit that phrase, Deep Rock Galactic embodies. It’s a four player co-op game where you pick a class and go on an alien mining expedition. You’ll navigate (or dig) procedurally-generated tunnels, find the resources or objectives you seek, defend yourself against angry alien bugs, and then get out. Extracting gets you a cut of the rewards, with which you can level up your classes, upgrade equipment, and customise your appearance further. Then you have a drink with your mates on the space station before doing it all again.

It might not sound like much on paper, but in practice? Deep Rock Galactic is something else. The passion and creativity of the devs is on full display, as they’ve filled the game with a ton of nuance and little details for you to find. Its graphics and sound design are well presented and stylised to suit, and the different environments are extremely well realised and fun to explore or dig through. Even with a strong core gameplay loop, there’s a decent chunk of variety in objectives. There’s also public games and solo options for those not interested in the co-op aspect, so if any of this looks or sounds interesting to you? Check it out. You won’t be disappointed. Rock and Stone, brothers!

DOOM Eternal

I’m rarely the sort to replay games often, mainly because I just never have the time. Imagine my surprise when I found myself replaying DOOM Eternal the day after I finished it. Any flaws in the game’s platforming or level design fades away the second that the music amps up and an intense combat scenario begins. Then there is nothing except an intricately designed dance of death, in which I am encouraged to use every tool at my disposal to rip and tear. Always pressured and always right on the verge of death and defeat, yet still always feeling powerful and with the means to turn the tide and raze hell. DOOM Eternal’s combat is absolutely phenomenal, and just writing about it now makes me want to start it up yet again.

Despite the controversies surrounding Mick Gordon and Denuvo, DOOM Eternal remains a highlight for me this year. I’m even one of the people who thinks that DOOM 2016 is actually the better overall package, but the sheer intensity of the combat in Eternal is like a drug that makes it impossible to go back to its predecessor. Kar en Tuk! Until it is done!

Hades

Supergiant Games have yet to deliver a bad game; in fact, Hades puts them at four for four in making excellent games that stand tall in my personal pantheon of favourites. It’s an action/roguelike where you play as Zagreus, son of Hades, on his quest to escape the Underworld of Greek mythology. And it is awesome. The combat is fluid and has impact to it from the very start, and that only gets more intense as you gain more upgrades and unlocks. The story and characters are engaging, and the entire thing is packaged with the usual Supergiant art, music, voice and style, which is to say that it is superb.

The game is still in Early Access, but since the launch version is due out this year, Hades absolutely counts for my GOTY 2020 considerations. Even then, there was a ton of content and variety even in the first iterations, and every major patch has expanded that dramatically. So far, it leads the pack by a country mile as my favourite. Hades is the most playable, content dense game that Supergiant has ever put out. If Dead Cells is the benchmark for what roguelikes aim to be, Hades is already past that and pushing higher still. “Godlike” is the only fitting descriptor.

Ricky Frech, Senior Staff Writer

Desperados 3

I will continue to beat the drum for what is, thus far, the best game I’ve played in 2020. Desperados 3 is a stealth-focused tactics game with sublime level design. The care developer that Mimimi Games put into crafting each level is astounding. As you lead a gruff band of Wild West mercenaries, you’ll take part in some of the most memorable sequences I’ve seen in the tactics space.

Every level feels unique. This is largely done by how Mimimi mixes up your party. Your squad is made up of five diverse characters; however, you almost never get to bring them all into battle at once. Instead, each mission gives you a unique combination and forces you to constantly adapt your playstyle to your team’s abilities. It’s a beautiful design that kept a smile on my face throughout the entire campaign.

Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout

I was very tempted to put Deadly Premonition 2 in my final slot. I love that game in spite of its many problems; however, it’s a tough one to recommend for several reasons. Another game that I heavily considered for this final slot is Murder by Numbers. It’s the best Picross game since Picross 3D, but it’s a niche genre that non-Picross fans are unlikely to check out.

Instead, let’s talk about a game that isn’t even technically out yet. I was lucky enough to play the beta for Mediatonic’s Fall Guys recently. It’s the most fun I’ve had playing a game since Gang Beasts, but takes it to a completely different level. As someone who grew up on Most Extreme Elimination and the vastly superior Japanese version of Ninja Warrior, Fall Guys’ brand of wacky game show antics really speaks to me. All it’s missing is Vic and Kenny’s hilarious commentary.

So, make sure to join me next week when it launches as part of August’s PS+ lineup (and also when it comes to PC). You won’t regret it.

Ori and the Will of the Wisps

Even in adding combat, Ori and the Will of the Wisps controls just as tightly as the original. Just moving through a level in this game is pure bliss. There are a handful of sections I didn’t love, but for the most part, developer Moon Studios absolutely nail gameplay.

However, that’s not why it makes my shortlist. Will of the Wisps is one of the more emotional stories I’ve played through in games. There aren’t many characters I’ve cared about more than that stupid bird. And I’m petrified of birds in real-life. Getting me to consider something with feathers as a friend is a big move. Plus, the game looks absolutely gorgeous. It’s a must-play.

David Gill, Staff Writer

Ghost of Tsushima

Ever since its announcement in 2017, I was so excited to play Ghost of Tsushima. Sucker Punch’s Sly Cooper and inFamous franchises are some of my favorite PlayStation exclusives, and I was interested to see what the developer would do next. From the moment I started rolling credits, I was so invested in Ghost of Tsushima and exploring Tsushima island even further.

One of the main things I love about this game is exploring the world and everything in it. There would be days where I didn’t do any story missions and just focused on side quests, raiding Mongol territory, and looking for collectibles. The game’s story went in directions I didn’t expect and I was always curious to see where it went. Sucker Punch also added cool mechanics such as the wind guiding you in the direction of your objective, which makes the game even more unique from others out there. You also can’t talk about the game without mentioning its gorgeous visuals that are just made for photo mode. After finishing Ghost of Tsushima, all I want to do is explore more, upgrade my skills, and get the platinum trophy. It’s up there with The Last of Us Part II as one of the best PlayStation exclusives and an amazing way to close out the current console generation.

The Last of Us Part II

With 2013’s The Last of Us being my favorite game of all time, my anticipation for The Last of Us Part II was high. I tried keeping an open mind and not letting my expectations getting the best of me. After finishing it four days after its release, The Last of Us Part II impacted me in ways I didn’t see coming.

The game took so many risks in telling its story, and I commend Naughty Dog for that. There were moments where I felt disconnected from the narrative but it ultimately succeeded in telling a story that’s multilayered and could be looked at through several different perspectives. On top of that, the game’s graphics are gorgeous, and in scope it is larger than any Naughty Dog game before. There are so many collectibles and environmental storytelling moments going on, and I couldn’t help but explore every area. Additionally, the game’s combat is better than ever and throws challenges at the player with almost every encounter. While The Last of Us Part II may not be for everyone, it’s one of very few games this year that I couldn’t stop thinking about days after I finished it.

Persona 5 Royal

Over the past few years, Persona 5 has been one of the games I’ve been meaning to play. It wasn’t until Persona 5 Royal released in March where I decided to finally play it. After reaching the credits in 80 hours, Persona 5 Royal is currently my favorite game of 2020, if not one of my favorite games of all time.

From its amazing story and characters to its incredible sense of style, Persona 5 Royal has so many things going for it. On top of that, there are so many side activities to do which make time go by so quickly. The game also has its amazing Confidant system that ties together your relationships with other characters and your main character’s progression. The game also features great writing and music you can’t help but jam to at times. While Persona 5 Royal’s length may turn some people off, it puts you on a journey you won’t regret taking.

Cameron Hawkins, Staff Writer

Final Fantasy VII Remake

The original Final Fantasy VII is one of my favorite games of all time, and Final Fantasy VII Remake has been one my most anticipated titles since its announcement back in 2015. Leading up to its release, Square Enix seemed shaky to say the least when it came to the development cycle of other previous big titles like Final Fantasy XV and Kingdom Hearts III, with Remake showing similar signs. Thankfully though, Remake was not in the same boat.

Final Fantasy VII Remake is arguably the best JRPG of this generation, and it may be my favorite game in general this generation once the new consoles hit shelves later this year. Square Enix was able to recreate a game that is so special to so many hearts that they easily could have messed up, but they didn’t. The characters are stunning, Midgar is beautiful even during the most dreadful times, and the combat system blends the best parts of Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts‘ gameplay into one. Despite some minuscule setbacks, being able to reestablish such a beloved title that will give both new and old players different things to be compelled by is an incredible achievement that we haven’t seen in gaming before. It deserves all the praise it has been getting and more.

The Last of Us Part II

I’m not a big fan of The Last of Us. I think the original game is overrated and a lot of things that it gets praised for other games did beforehand and better, but I enjoyed my time with The Last of Us Part II. It was different and took some interesting narrative risks that worked in its favor in some areas and hurt it in others. I have issues with the level design and how Naughty Dog wanted you to explore around Seattle, but the main reason I picked up The Last of Us Part II is for the story.

This sequel feels like a worthy (and better) follow-up to its predecessor. In the original, I had issues regarding certain character choices that most of who I talk to normally don’t agree with. But in The Last of Us Part II, I felt validated that my issues were an important part of the narrative throughout. At the end of the day, I found the story to be memorable with a lot to unpack. I just wish I didn’t have so many general issues with the game at ground level, or else I would have placed it on a higher pedestal.

Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore

I never thought I would see the day where my favorite Wii U title would get a second chance at life. Even with being a remastered port, Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore is currently my favorite Nintendo Switch title. For some, the direction of teenage Japanese idols may turn you off, but that is just the face of a wonderfully fun and engaging JRPG. Being originally made by Atlus for the Wii U, it doesn’t meet the standards that people know from Persona 5, but there are aspects of Tokyo Mirage Sessions that I like over Persona. The combat system is diverse and addictive at times, the puzzles can give you a real challenge, and of course it oozes that Atlus charm.

It is a beautiful homage to the Fire Emblem franchise, telling a Fire Emblem story in a completely new way while still having the Atlus vision behind it. If you love Persona, play Tokyo Mirage Sessions. If you love Fire Emblem, play Tokyo Mirage Sessions. Unless you don’t like JRPGs, you should play Tokyo Mirage Sessions.

Allisa James, Senior Staff Writer

Final Fantasy VII Remake

This game has absolutely captured me from the first moment I played it. Expanding on the entirety of the Midgar section from the original Final Fantasy VII, FFVII Remake offers a crazy deep dive that fleshes out every last component. The expansions made to the plot managed to create more intrigue and better convey the inner workings of Shinra and the various villains. In turn, the heroes have more chances to shine as they spend more time cooperating with each other while expanding their team and character dynamics. The Avalanche members Jessie, Biggs, and Wedge are fleshed out themselves and actually feel like real people, making their (most likely) tragic fates even more poignant. The setting has never felt more alive with tons of shops, NPCs constantly scurrying around and chatting about their daily lives and current events, and side quests that give the residents agency and personality. And all of this is rounded out by some stellar voice work.

This isn’t even mentioning the action/turn-based blended combat system that requires strategy to prevail (and will crush you for button spamming). The revamped combat system in FFVII Remake features tons of combo creation that relies on both an intimate knowledge of each attacks’ timing and on quick reflexes to build those chains in the first place. There’s also an incredible amount of weapon and Materia build customization options for players, depending on the roles you want each character to take on.

Persona 5 Royal

Pushing past the dense pacing before Okumura’s Palace, Royal offers everything you could ever ask for in an updated re-release. It introduced sorely needed gameplay balances, brand new mechanics that liven up and condense otherwise boring dungeon layouts, revamped boss battles, and added tons of new minigames. That’s aside from the fact that there is a new prefecture to explore, it introduced two new characters and added more Confidants, completely overhauled a pre-existing Confidant, added brand new events, added a new school semester and an new dungeon coupled with two new endings, more voice work, and more. The sheer amount of new content in Persona 5 Royal is staggering and shows how much work Atlus put into this title to make an already amazing game even better.

Pokemon Sword and Shield: Isle of Armor

The first of two DLC packs releasing this year for the brand new main entries in the Pokemon franchise, the Isle of Armor expansion features tons of new content as well. More Pokemon are introduced in the National Dex, there’s a fun introductory plot that also brings in your (self-proclaimed) rival and gym leader hopeful, a huge island filled with secrets and hidden areas to explore, item fusion, and new Gigantamax forms.

The best part of Isle of Armor is getting to train up an adorable Pokemon named Kubfu. This Pokemon will let you take part in the Towers of Two Fists challenges and completing one of them — the Tower of Darkness or Tower of Waters — will evolve your Kubfu into Urshifu. The Tower you choose will determine Urshifu’s fighting style, with each style having its own moveset and strengths. For Pokemon fans, the first DLC expansion is guaranteed to keep you entertained for hours while making you wish for the upcoming Crown Tundra pack even more.

Mehrdad Khayyat, Staff Writer

F1 2020

I’m not a big fan of Formula 1 tournaments in the real world, as I know very little about the sport’s leading teams and basic rules. But when I got the chance to play F1 2020 this year, it started to turn me into a Formula 1 professional fan. It even got to the point that I began reading about the history of the sport, dig up its current teams, and follow the live real-world races of Formula 1.

Of course, if you put a lot of time on a certain game, you would become a veteran fan of it sooner or later, but the progress that I made in F1 2020 was significant enough that all I can do is to praise its gameplay design. F1 2020 is a game that will adapt itself to the level of your driving skills without losing its highly stressful realistic experience. It’s impossible to describe all the amazing features of the game in a few paragraphs, but F1 2020 is my favorite racing title of this year, as I enjoy it more and more by winning every lap of a race over the opponent drivers. Simply, it’s like my Dark Souls in the racing genre.

Minecraft Dungeons

As the one of the first branches of the Minecraft series set in a totally different genre from that of the original game, Minecraft Dungeons is a gameplay-focused entertaining experience that I would be playing for months if there were more chapters to jump in.

Despite its short campaign, Minecraft Dungeons is a highly replayable game where you are encouraged to challenge yourself more and more with higher difficulty levels and better gear for fighting enemies. Dungeons features a very simple combat design that some may find as a negative point, but if it’s enjoyable enough, then why bother ourselves with more complicated stuff?

Stela

Despite being a brief gaming experience, Stela is surely the most beautiful game that I’ve played so far in 2020. The game nails perfection in art and sound design, featuring various gorgeous locations accompanied by strong and impressive song pieces that I couldn’t stop listening to even days after finishing the game.

Of course, Stela has its own downsides in the case of gameplay, but it doesn’t mean you can put it aside easily. If you ask me, Stela is a must-play title for those who are looking for a relaxing puzzle-adventure to take a break from the routine mature video game experiences, at least for a few hours.

Ryan Meitzler, Features Editor

Half-Life: Alyx I’m not a huge connoisseur of VR games; I have an Oculus Rift headset but, for the most part, I prefer keeping my gaming to traditional experiences on console and PC. That said, Half-Life: Alyx changed that for me earlier this year and, in a lot of ways, it showed what I’ve been missing out on in VR. More importantly, Alyx feels like not just a tremendous VR game, but a huge step forward for the medium as a whole and an incredible example of immersive storytelling in a VR experience.

As a long-time fan of the Half-Life series, seeing the familiar sights of City 17 once again was a thrill in and of itself. However, the experience of witnessing it all again in Half-Life: Alyx was only enhanced by playing in VR, as Combine structures loomed in the distance and Striders towered over with their shambling legs. Everything I love about the Half-Life series is distilled perfectly into Alyx and fueled by its technical innovations in VR. Though I know a lot people most likely haven’t played it due to not owning a VR headset, trust me; when you do, this is the game that is worth having it for.

The Last of Us Part II

Even well after finishing The Last of Us Part II last month, it’s still a game that I haven’t been able to get out of my head after playing it. As much as I went into Part II unsure of whether Naughty Dog would be able to deliver an experience that could hold up to the original The Last of Us, by the end of Part II I had no doubt that the studio managed to pull it off and then some.

Though some might consider The Last of Us Part II the most “controversial” game of 2020 so far as a result of internet discourse around the game’s story and ending, to me, the game’s strengths lie in its willingness to take risks and ask questions with no easy answers. The moral complexities at the heart of Ellie and Abby’s stories in The Last of Us Part II are ones that I myself haven’t fully come to terms with yet even after finishing the game, and speak to its engrossing and unrelenting story. Though The Last of Us Part II was messaged as a game about “hate,” by the story’s end, you’ll see that it compasses much more than that, and is easily one of the most memorable (if gut-wrenching) experiences that I’ve had so far this year.

Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore

While normally I wouldn’t usually consider a remastered version of a game on my year-end lists, I have to give a bit of the spotlight this time around to Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore. Having missed out on the game when it first released on the Wii U and in the past several years becoming infatuated with the Persona series, those two events led to the perfect confluence of finally getting to play Tokyo Mirage Sessions this year and loving it.

Taking the elements of the Shin Megami Tensei and Fire Emblem series and mixing them together, Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore by today’s standards isn’t a JRPG of the caliber of Persona 5, but is still an incredibly fun and refreshing experience in its own right. With its J-pop infused theme and music, an eclectic and memorable cast of characters, and an engaging combat system, Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore is an excellent way to experience an underrated JRPG, regardless of whether you’re an SMT/Fire Emblem fan or otherwise.

Logan Moore, Managing Editor

DOOM Eternal

DOOM Eternal rules. In my own estimation, Eternal is a drastic improvement in nearly every way over the original game. The combat is more visceral, the soundtrack is heavier, and traversal around each environment is more enticing. It’s not just what I believe to be the best game of the year, it’s very well the best shooter released in this entire console generation. Play it.

Ori and the Will of the Wisps

I did not expect to like Ori and the Will of the Wisps like I did. Blind Forest never clicked with me when I played it a few years back like it did for many others, so my expectations for Will of the Wisps were pretty reserved. The final game ended up being far more engrossing, especially from a storytelling standpoint, than I thought it would be.Will of the Wisps is likely the best Metroidvania game I have played in the past few years and is deserving of endless attention. Make sure you give it a shot if you have an Xbox or PC.

Persona 5 Royal

I never got around to playing the original Persona 5. It has basically been my white whale for years and was a game that I knew I’d love if I just fully committed to actually playing it from front to back. When I found that Persona 5 was finally set to be re-released in its new Royal iteration, I knew this had to be the point where I rectified my mistake from the first time around. Fortunately, that turned out to be the best gaming-related decision that I have made so far in 2020.

Persona 5 Royal, despite having not yet finished it, has already become one of my favorite games of all-time. In a year that has been rife with stress, anxiety, and a multitude of other hardships for me personally, Persona 5 Royal has been a consistent joy to ease into regularly at the end of some very long days. I can’t wait to (hopefully) finish it up in the next few weeks.

Laddie Simco, Associate Staff Writer

Dreams

Dreams is a tough one to put a label on. I remember when Media Molecule first announced the ambitious project, I was immediately intrigued but couldn’t fully wrap my mind around exactly what it was trying to achieve. It’s a constantly evolving set of tools that is somewhat overwhelming at first, but Media Molecule takes you by the hand and guides you through the scary stuff. If creation isn’t your thing, Dreams gives you instant access to every type of game or multimedia experience you could ever imagine created by other dreamers. You become part of the “Dreamiverse,” which is the built-in community and social network where you can meet other dreamers or check out their works. So far that includes everything from all original games to re-creations of things like the PT demo or the opening section of Metal Gear Solid. Admittedly, I’ve still not created anything I’m proud enough to publish for the Dreamiverse to see, but I’ve had tons of fun trying it out. My favorite thing is tinkering with the music tools.

Dreams includes a campaign known as “Art’s Dream,” which acts as an advanced tutorial to show what the game can do. It was created entirely within the game and using the same tools that are available to anyone with a PS4 and a copy of Dreams. It’s a bit on the short side, clocking in around two hours, but not a minute is wasted. It features a cast of likable characters and incorporates many genres including platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and even throws in a few unforgettable musical numbers for good measure. I’d love to see more of “Art’s Dream,” perhaps even a new adventure starring Frances and Foxy. If you don’t finish “Art’s Dream” with a smile on your face, you are either a monster or you’re dead inside.

Ghost of Tsushima

These three games not only represent my best of 2020 so far; in many ways they also represent the best of an era as we prepare to say goodbye to the console generation that gave birth to the PS4 and the Xbox One. While initially one of my three picks went to Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Ghost of Tsushima came in at the last minute and knocked it out of the list. The game is an absolute joy to play. It features stunning visuals and environments, spicy combat, and an engaging story complete with well-written characters. It’s a massive open-world game that I’m still happily exploring without feeling that fatigue I get from so many other open-world games. This has a lot to do with the side missions not feeling like they were an afterthought; some are just as enjoyable as the main missions.

Throughout the game you play as Jin, who is one of the last samurai during the first Mongol invasions of Japan. However, there are a series of side missions that feature a story arc centering around Jin’s allies and friends. I found this to be a cool feature that lets you get to know the supporting characters better, and could even set up the possibility of spin-offs or sequels. Aside from being an expert with the katana, Jin is equipped with a small arsenal of other weapons and equipment that noticeably gets more deadly as you progress to the top of the skill tree. There are a few quirks with button responsiveness and erratic movement at times, but honestly, there’s so much to love about Ghost of Tsushima that after a while, you won’t even notice.

The Last of Us Part II

Naughty Dog made a few bold choices with the direction that The Last of Us Part II took. Not everyone was happy with the outcome, but for me it not only lived up to my high expectations, it at times surpassed them. It’s brutal and violent in a way that often makes you uncomfortable, and yet, it didn’t feel gratuitous. I’m sure playing it amidst a real-life pandemic heightened my experience and made it even more poignant. While playing my emotions ran the gamut of everything I’ve ever felt. Just like in the first game, it’s hard to tell who (or if anyone) is the protagonist. You can love or hate a character in this game for exactly the same reasons. I have to say, without blatant spoilers, the way that Naughty Dog dropped you in new character Abby’s playable shoes without a formal introduction was shocking and brilliant.

The gameplay of The Last of Us Part II is much improved over the first game, but it still retains many of the same core mechanics. As far as graphics go, it’s Naughty Dog, so of course the game looks amazing. We are introduced to a few new variations of the infected, some improved and new weapons, and an entirely new playground which largely takes place in Seattle. The voice acting is top-notch with Ashley Johnson once again reprising the role of Ellie. The campaign is lengthy and depending upon how you play and if you are a treasure seeker, it can take up to 40 hours to complete. Despite having many “giraffe” moments, The Last of Us Part II isn’t the “feel-good” game of the year. It shows us a harsh reality and some of the subjects explored are not for the squeamish, which was obviously going to divide the audience. Weeks after finishing The Last of Us Part II, it still haunts me. Despite its critics, The Last of Us Part II will be remembered as one of the greatest games ever made, and I think it deserves every bit of that praise.

Nick Tricome, Staff Writer

Final Fantasy VII Remake

Part of me is still in awe that this even exists (the part of me that watched that PS3 tech demo on loop all those years ago), and another part is trying to comprehend something I never could’ve expected upon completing the game: Final Fantasy VII is brand new again.

Let’s face it: the ending of this game and the new story elements it introduced along the way are pretty divisive, and scary for some even (hell, even the characters themselves were uneasy stepping into a quite literal unknown). The development team behind this game, composed of veterans from the original and new blood that grew up playing it, knew exactly what they were making here and how important FFVII is to so many people. And it’s obvious how far they went to be faithful not just to the original game, but everything about its world and characters that came after.

Final Fantasy VII Remake is only the first part of the story, but is such a grand celebration of everything the original game has become over the past 23 years. And then it sets itself up for the story to play out differently. It’s gutsy for sure, and to me, incredible. For the next part of Remake–be it “Part 2,” “Reunion,” or whatever Square wants to call it–I legitimately don’t know what’s going to happen, and that’s all really exciting to me.

Kingdom Hearts III: ReMIND

Kingdom Hearts III was hit or miss with fans, and the ReMIND DLC fell into pretty much the same boat. For me, they were both hits. The last third of Kingdom Hearts III is still one constant exposition dump, and ReMIND didn’t reinvent that. Instead, it just added to it with more story content, some extra, more challenging boss fights, and finally giving Kairi something to do. Combine that with the merciless boss battles, the Final Fantasy fan service that was noticeably missing from the core game, and that massive cliffhanger of a secret ending that came with the “Limit Cut” episode, and ReMIND is pretty much a small encapsulation of why I enjoy the series at the end of the day. It’s an ultimately nonsensical story that’s presented so sincerely that I can’t help but love it, with gameplay that can make me question my sanity but feel so incredibly satisfying and smooth when it all finally clicks, and has an ending teaser that’ll keep me theorizing for however long it takes to get the next game.

Plus, ReMIND reaffirms that Donald Duck is the most powerful being in existence.

The Wonderful 101: Remastered

By and large, this is more of a current-gen port than a straight up remaster (granted, that term has a pretty wide definition), but that’s perfectly fine. The Wonderful 101 was a commercial bomb when it released as a Wii U exclusive seven years ago, but it was also one of the most unique and highly creative action games I’ve ever played. So just having a modern, widely accessible version of the game, I think, is a huge win both for returning fans and players who’ve heard about it but never had the means to play it for themselves.

You don’t play as one character in The Wonderful 101, you play as an entire team of Super Sentai/Power Rangers-inspired heroes all at once, all colorful both aesthetically and in their personality. You draw basic shapes to summon weapons and fight alien invaders, being able to start out with a giant fist, then switching on the fly to a sword, a whip, or a gun to keep combos going. You play through a simple but earnestly put together story, one with plenty of wit and humor, that consistently escalates towards massive scale boss battles with some of the greatest quick-time events I’ve ever seen. However, then it will throw you into a gameplay section that’s just one big tribute to another game entirely, because why not?

The Wonderful 101: Remastered is excellent, but won’t be everyone’s cup of tea. That said, the game’s first mission captures everything it’s about, so if you’re curious but still on the fence, go check it out. It should be more than enough for you to make a decision.

Scott White, Associate Staff Writer

Dungeons & Dragons

So, the world is in a pretty crappy spot right now. I miss being able to have board game and Magic nights with my friends, but one game I’ve been able to continue to enjoy is Dungeons & Dragons. And boy-o-boy has the bug bitten me bad during this quarantine. My normal Tuesday night crew made the transition to Roll20 to continue our adventures, and this social interaction grew to become one of the highlights of my week. We still play mostly online, but we’ve been able to recently play our first in-person game recently and it was a magical celebration.

I love rolling dice, I love coming up with solutions to problems, and I love when things inextricably go off the walls and things go to hell in this game. In my hunger for more dice-rolling goodness, I finally started Critical Role (started at the very beginning, “Vox Machina” episode 1, baby!), and it has only ignited an even larger desire to play. I have even started an additional bi-weekly game with another group of friends and I’m doing some Gen Con stuff too, just to try and take the roleplaying itch off.

Thank you Dungeons & Dragons for helping keep me sane during these crazy times. As sane as I can be, anyway.

Final Fantasy VII Remake

Much like many people, I waited so very long for this game to finally release and the fact that it turned out so much better than we all expected was such an amazing surprise. Final Fantasy VII Remake finally nailed what Square has been attempting to create in a game since they released Advent Children, with flashy and stylish combat that retains much of the depth and strategy of a turn-based RPG. The gameplay, characters, and much of the story all snapped perfectly into place for me, and I fell in love with this world all over again. I’m hopeful that with much of the battle system figured out and a lot of the ground work now being laid, the time until the next entry of Final Fantasy VII Remake won’t be too long. Until then, I will eagerly daydream and speculate as to what many of the endgame moments mean, and hope that they add FFXII‘s Gambit system into the next game.

Persona 5 Royal

Persona 5 is one of the best RPGs of all time; fight me. I fell in love with the original release back in 2017, and while excited for Royal, I was curious how I would take to replaying such a long game again. 130 hours later, I came away loving the characters, story, and gameplay even more than I did the first time. From the gratuitous amount of style that oozes from every facet of this game, to the jazz-rock soundtrack that I never want to get out of my head, I can’t help but smile when I think about Persona 5 Royal.

Sam Woods, Staff Writer

Animal Crossing: New Horizons

Speaking of a game releasing at the right time, Animal Crossing: New Horizons absolutely hit the sweet spot. I’ve been an Animal Crossing fan since the GameCube, so my excitement was palpable for the new release, but Nintendo did what Nintendo does best and knocked it out of the park, exceeding my already high expectations.

My girlfriend is far from a gamer. The extent of her gaming history is building houses in The Sims and playing Wii Sports or Mario Kart 8, but as we entered lockdown in the UK earlier this year, I decided to pick her up a Switch Lite and a copy of Animal Crossing, and it’s been a revelation. Since the game came out in March we’ve played together almost every day, sharing design ideas, planning out our towns, trading items and just hanging out. We’ve spent hundreds of happy hours playing this game together and it’s absolutely deserving of its spot in my top three games of this year so far.

The Last of Us Part II

While I managed to hold off from replaying Persona 5, I think I’m going to struggle to do the same with The Last of Us Part II. The gripping drama, fantastic world-building and interweaving story are calling me back. It’s a call that is getting harder to resist the more time that passes.

Although “the internet” might disagree, I felt The Last of Us Part II told a fantastic story in a really engaging way. I felt a huge range of emotions at every twist and turn, and at the end of the game I was left feeling hollow. Not hollow in a negative way, but in the way when you complete an awesome TV series and wonder what life was like before it. The Last of Us Part II is nothing short of incredible, and I implore the doubters to give it a shot.

Persona 5 Royal

Persona 5 was the first game in the Persona series that I’d checked out, and after completing it back in 2018, I was itching to play it again. During my time of hesitation Persona 5 Royal was promptly announced and I decided to wait it out, and boy am I glad I did.

The original game, to me at least, is an absolute masterpiece. The music is incredible, the art direction is stunning, and its gameplay loop is so addictive. While my expectations for Persona 5 Royal were high, the first game was so good that I wasn’t expecting anything groundbreaking. I was wrong. Atlus tightened up a lot of the smaller gameplay niggles from the original game, added a pair of fascinating new characters, and incorporated the pinnacle of all Palaces. Although I clocked in at close to 120 hours, it released at a perfect time where social interaction has been forced to a minimum. Persona 5 Royal allowed me to create meaningful bonds and make up for lost time all while playing through the game’s intricate story.

Now that you know what our favorite games have been from the first half of the year, what have your favorite games of 2020 (so far) been? What titles are you looking forward to for the rest of the year? Sound off and let us know in the comments down below!

July 31, 2020 1:00 PM EST

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/07/dualshockers-favorite-video-games-of-2020-so-far/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=dualshockers-favorite-video-games-of-2020-so-far

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