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greysfall · 3 years

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My 4444-word review of NEO TWEWY (with personal illustration + heavy spoilers)

My overall critical score for the game is 7.5/10, while my personal enjoyment score is 8.5/10. This review is posted as I have 80% completed the game, got the secret ending and achieved the Angel psychic rank. I’ll first start with the main pros and cons as follows.

PROS:

- Enjoyable as a whole, still upholding the first game’s spirit in world building and sharing the same backbone - which was mostly revealed in the Secret Reports, it’s impossible to grasp the story without reading them.

- The new cast and new game is charming in their own way

- The old cast’s return is one of the biggest highlights for sure, it was fun and impactful. Everyone stays true to themselves and also had their own stories wrapped up nicely.

- Boss designs are cool, new pins are fun to use and collect

- The connection between the old and new cast is well written and executed, including but are not limited to the tension between the old and new protagonist, the weird but fun interaction between the 2 Composers, the new friendships revealed and formed

- Sho being in the main cast is something so uniquely TWEWY and uniquely Sho

- Still good music

- Still many fun side quests, some of them really uphold the same quirky spirit of the old game and some are surprisingly touching

- Many new nice stores and yummy looking foods to explore

- The map is really easy to memorize for me, it’s fun to travel around the “current” Shibuya to see all the differences compared to the past

- The social network is crazy and interesting to read through

- Has an anti-frustration system to help 100% complete the game more easily and earn money faster, so post-game is relatively managable.

- Overall, I really feel the efforts the team poured into making this as their passion project, not just during the development process but for all the last 14 years. They showed the vision of what they wanted to make, at the same time giving something to both the old as well as new fans.

CONS:

- The biggest problem with the game is scenario writing. The story is so heavily back-loaded. The director himself thought it would be better to balance out the tension flow by adding more at the beginning but gave in to the scenario writer in the end, probably due to time pressure. This results in an underwhelming execution of characterization and lots of wasted potentials for the first half of the game.

- I struggle to view it as a stand-alone game, since the backstory and the old cast both play such an important role in the core of the game. If someone plays this game without having played the OG, they can only enjoy it on surface value at best.

- The new cast is nice but most of them aren’t quite as intriguing as the old cast, maybe it’s cuz they’re all too nice deep down that they lack a little bit of an edge, of that batshit craziness that everyone in the OG used to have? I think some characters (Fret, Nagi) ended up weaker in terms of characterization because the writer is too afraid of making them unlikeable – which kind of backlashed cuz they only became likable in the most expectable way to cater for a specific group of fans. I would have wished for the other team leaders to be more crazy too, had they not suffered 30+ loops of the Game…

- The CAMERAWORK IS HELL.

- Gameplay does get tedious at certain points with all the time travels.

- Shiba is so badly written as a villain, some Shinjuku characters should be given more screentime cutting into Shiba’s– like Hishima or Kaie or even, Hazuki (though his limited presence also solidified his importance).

- Some of the main character designs, for example Beat’s hairstyle and his food reactions are hilariously bad. What’s the point of covering up most of his unique facial features?

- Some of the minor/side characters’ design are too cool for them to have such a small role (eg: Ayano, Eiru). Ryoji did get much screentime but is nowhere as fun as Makoto was.

- Overall the scope of this game is made a little too big for the team to handle as perfectly as the last game that was very compact, it felt somewhat rushed in development too so the missing pieces are clearly there in the final picture

The entry fee versus paying for it all in the end

An important difference between the Neo game and the original Shibuya game was that the Shibuya rule asked for an entry fee that is the Player’s most important asset, stated as a chance the Composer gives them to reexamine themselves. Meanwhile, the Shinjuku rule neither encourages nor allows personal growth and ultimately aims to erase as many Players as possible. It’s a pity we were never introduced to the full Shinjuku rulebook, as it seems like the system there focuses more on building up power and a grand government to compare with the individuality-driven system of Shibuya.

When you have to compare the new game and the original game (OG), this is an important factor to consider. Also, the OG has a serious storyline running through and through, locked with a different partner/GM creating unique atmosphere for each week and you don’t get to see your old partners again until the end. NEO’s team system does not allow such deep insight and communication between the Players. All of your teammates are always there throughout, the dynamic does change with each new addition but it is not as prominent as a partner change.

Another important factor is how the OG was built from scratch for a new platform as “something no one has ever seen before”, while Neo recycled a lot of old unused ideas from the previous development (check out this interview for more details). The development team for NEO lacks 2 key members and had a change of writer so the final product is not as strongly bound together as the last game.

The new cast is definitely inspired by today’s teenagers (from the view of creators), compared to the old cast they’re more sociable and always seem to take whatever works for them despite feeling unstable inside. They are all innocent and genuinely nice kids, avoiding to hurt each other to a degree that they end up keeping some sort of distance. They’re also unable to communicate at deeper levels, always stagnant at this half-baked stage of equilibrium without any motivation to get to the core of things. That is the cost of entering the game without an entry fee, without even dying or having a reason to be there/to fight seriously. These kids were stolen from the RG into a Game that was decidedly the worst environment for them to change or develop, just wandering around cluelessly to find a way “out” until tragedies started to unfold one by one and they ended up being charged the total sum of the price for their actions – ultimately losing everything in the end.

That is, I believe, a story arc which can resonate more to the youth of today rather than of my generation. If the message of the old game was to “listen”, enjoy life to the fullest and accept to trust others, the message of the new game is to “speak up” from the inside, trying to understand yourself and take actions instead of just going with the flow and finally, to take responsibility for such actions.

If Neku was handpicked by the Composer for being the special one with an all-dense soul to ensure victory of the game then Rindo was just a normal kid chosen out of random by Kubo to be his back-up plan, who just happened to have a high enough imagination to awaken the incredible power from his pin. Rindo was then officially chosen by the Composer as Josh picked up and handed the pin to him again, this time not as Josh’s personal Proxy – but as the Proxy to represent the normal people of Shibuya and via whom he could gamble if humans can fight for their own fate.

The underworld heroine and the hero with little of his own

Shoka is for me a refreshing and layered heroine. She’s the kind of character that took at least 3 trials of creators to form as a complete individual – that included Nomura who gave her the base design and Reaper background, Gen who gave a more cunning touch and the writers who made her English dialogues more punchy. Dishonesty equals “tsundere” is such a cliché, so the English writers tried really hard to avoid that trope in my opinion, while still letting her good intention come through.

She serves as the character who is informed of everything the players should have known, and there was almost nothing she could do about it. Almost. Until she met Rindo.

They were drawn to each other by sharing a state of “not having anything of their own”. They both started out with not being able to truly know themselves, Shoka even hated her RG life but also managed to mature from that stage before Rindo. She must have vibed with Shiki’s love and passion in the Gatto Nero threads, initiating her connection with Shibuya and understanding herself more. With Shoka as Swallow, they were able to open up to each other and offer mental support… but was still not getting to the centre of their problems because for all this time, Shoka could not tell Rindo the most important things about herself.

How did Shoka feel when she met Rindo at the UG? She probably didn’t want to hope that he would live the day until she witnessed the Twisters’ potentials. From the very beginning, they were both incredibly conscious of each other and also constantly frustrated that the person they happened to “notice” was such a condescending bitch/a clueless loser. The Shinjuku Reapers are overall quite drunk in power and uncompassionate to Players, Shoka included. She is also a master of dissociation, which results in her constant boredom, tone swings, haughtiness and subconsciously distancing herself from the friend – the boy she cares about – from false hope, as she judged from facts that it was a hopeless situation where nothing could ever be. Maybe she is naturally a bit of a chameleon just like her name suggests (Shoka 紫陽花 = hydrangea, the color-changing flower), so putting on an act and always dissociating herself from what’s important was easy, while hiding her contradiction was impossible. It was the ex-Reaper Beat who broke it out to her, that she should decide whether she really cared and wanted to do something for a change. He knew how it felt like to cross that line, and knew she wanted to too.

Shoka is endeared by many of the Shinjuku Reapers and has shown independent acts of kindness (the Shinjuku ghost), proving that her kind and truthful side is as real as her harsh and dishonest side – which makes her a nice mirror to the previous heroine Shiki, who also embraced a dichotomy of self-complex and self-love within her character. In the end, she was the first of the new cast to ultimately accept all that is important to her and independently made the decision to help save Shibuya despite all costs.

She was jealous at Rindo’s interaction with Tsugumi and Kanon but remained silent cuz she wasn’t at a place to have any say about it. She also didn’t reveal about Swallow because that would only add an awkward irrelevance to their current situation, as she was too ready to face erasure at the end of the Game. She only wished to “play a game” with him, be it FanGo or the Reapers’ Game. The tension that the team could only feel at the end, she’s felt it the entire time. The song “DIVIDE” is applicable to not just one bond in the game, but it always makes me think of theirs. There is always a “divide” between her and Rindo throughout the course of their journey, as the living and the dead, as a Player and Reaper, as someone who has a place to return to and someone who doesn’t, someone who knows little but wields too much power and someone who knows a lot despite not being able to do much.

“If only I had the chance to connect with you on the other side

But time goes on, and without us realizing it

The battle is getting heated

Time goes on, and without us realiazing it

Divided again”

To be honest, maybe I didn’t grow any affection for the new main cast from Rindo’s perspective but from Shoka’s. Since I started to sympathize with Shoka, I started to see the boy in a more “real” way. The real Rindo, behind his peaceful façade with others, would lash out on Shoka for her unfairly harsh attitude while none of the others cared. He could also subtly feel that mantle of unspoken secrets from her, her own contradictions, the unresolved chemistry between themselves – and not knowing what to do with it rather than to feel angry with all the unfairness he could not process. (As a Libra too, he’s triggered the most by unfairness!)

It is actually a positive development as he’s at least “reacting” to something strongly now rather than to keep evading his problems. During my replay, I clearly saw the difficult situation Shoka was in, her remaining harshness after the Motoi incident was due to her internal struggle with a mission to save her own life, versus a chance to really be with the team. Her decision was to do both at the risk of losing favour from both sides. Rindo started to accept her layer by layer, as the person who resonated the most to her contradicting nature from the start and knew that via learning her resolve, he has learnt his too.

Later into the game, she even got too much of his attention. Maybe even without knowing she’s Swallow, he’s familiar with her thinking direction and Swallow had always been closer to him than any other friend. It was only after she had to betray her important ones twice that she could start being truly honest. The scene when she died a 2nd time left a strong impression in me, the little reveal let Rindo know that he is also losing Swallow as he’s losing Shoka – and that only death could drive the last secret out of her. Her final “Later, loser” echoed through Rindo as it was the final truth, with only him remaining to hear it: they had actually, already lost everything.

Rindo was the boy who never dared to face all that matters to him until he lost it all, fighting an unfair battle in the faith that they would somehow still win. Shoka was the girl who always knew what was dear to her, but never dared to think she could be together with them ever after and still threw her all into a battle she knew was losing. I think they stir each other on naturally to fill out their gaps, similar to what the Shibuya game partner systerm would have aimed for. The end reward was a little divine intervention to help close up the divide between them once and for all.

During the game there was not enough space to process anything personal so at the ending when they officially became “friends”, it was an important affirmation of their bond. Some people complained it was friendzoning but it’s not, they just have arrived at the perfect place to start something more. “From now on, we will truly be together” – I read it as that kind of message.

The heroine from a lost battle, with her story taken away

After reading the secret reports and playing the game to be surprised of how small a role Tsugumi had in the main game despite being the “Hype-chan” thought to be a major character of the next TWEWY installment, many fans would feel sad at a missed opportunity to see the Shinjuku arc in full depiction.

It was shown clearly that, a Shinjuku arc was very carefully planned out and is a vital part of the whole story, yet it could not be made due to various circumstances behind the development scene. I would assume, that the team were not able to make a TWEWY game that ended on a despairing note, but it already happened in their mind, thus becoming a mental burden that forced them to break away from it and started the game anew with NEO. A significant part of NEO became the healing arc for the Shinjuku characters, especially for Tsugumi though I really wished more emphasis should have been placed on her rather than Shiba. We didn’t even get to see her brother – Shinjuku’s Conductor who had a vital role and instead was given the clueless Shiba, who had absolutely no idea what’s going on all the way until the last day in NEO. It’s as if Tsugumi has had her story stolen away from her, because her own battle ended with a saddening loss.

I think every time the game creators look at Tsugumi, they would feel that sadness too. Maybe to them, she is a bigger character than what is seen by the fans, as despite their failed effort to depict her story, she’s lived in their mind for all these years through periods of destruction, healing and rebuild. Though it is a pity we could not get to experience the full scope of the Shinjuku story, the creators was clear about the place they wished for it to arrive at.

Individuality, connection and the social network

The team system adapted from Shinjuku rulebook does not allow much room for personal development, as the team dynamic is closer to a work relationship forced to bear results, than a spiritual bond to max out all corners of understanding as found in the partnership system. The old Shibuya system allowed only 1 winner and 1 week limit per game, while the new rule declares for a 1 winning team and only the team at last place will be erased – the other teams will enter another loop. Furthermore, whichever team to challenge the unwinnable Ruinbringers will face the risk of ending up dead last followed by erasure. As a result, the longest-standing teams are most likely not the strongest ever recorded, but the ones who have figured out a strategy to simply survive until something changes, enjoying their newly found social constructs while they are at it. Basically, it is a system to hypnotise players into the illusion that they are still “living”.

Therefore, we as players would not get to the core of each Player individually as fast and directly as we did in the last game. The Twisters were able to stand out not because they’re powerful, they only started to have a real chance after growing enough to each form a meaningful and personal connection to another teammate. It did not come as a team, nor did it intiate from the existing friendship between Rindo and Fret. In fact, I did not find much solidity or anything truly note-worthy about the main team and new characters within themselves until they started clashing with other team members, Reapers and new recruits from week 2 onwards. Rindo found his personal development with Shoka (via a clash with Motoi and pretty much a mini dating sim between them), then via the confrontation of his role with Neku; Fret found his with Kanon then Nagi, the team learned about the real Neku via Beat, Neku entered the UG via Coco’s wish to save Tsugumi… it was not the team but their personal links that empowered them to fight and solve each of their problems.

The other team leaders may have failed because they did not form such personal links, after 30+ hopeless loops Fuya’s team all fell apart to pursue their own interest even at the cost of erasure, Motoi quit his KOL façade to work like a dog for the Reapers (probably to save just his own ass not his team), while Kanon dropped her tricks to find changes via honest cooperation in acceptance of a fair loss. The despairing note in that is huge without making much of a scene because their failure didn’t happen at their best effort to “win”, but in their last attempt to find a way “out”. Even Shiba got his way “out” in the end thanked to his personal friendship with Hishima and Tsugumi.

Something has shifted in the mindset of the game creators in the last 14 years, as both games are about “connection vs individuality” but the last game focuses more on connection between just individuals and this one on the overall network that is formed out of those individual connections.

The introduction of Beat into the main cast was truly the bridge between old and new, they helped each other out in several turns before officially recruiting him. Beat is a character whom a lot of fans including myself have felt somewhat concerned about after Neku disappeared from the RG, so when the new kids welcomed Beat with warm and organic interaction and Beat seemed happy, I started to feel like I wanted to help them out too! I think the overall team chemistry is enjoyable enough for new players, but I could warm up to the new kids more from the pov of a returning character – whom I’m glad to be Beat, as the older brother figure who is genuinely kind, fun, serious and upbeat at the same time; who is needed and needs the kids in return.

The social network is a fun and refreshing feature. You can read all of the crazy tidbits about Shibuya and the links each character have formed with the town people, it’s also fun to visualize how the characters act off screen. Characters’ profiles provide extra insight into their background too, like how it reveals Tsugumi has been friend with Coco during her time in the RG. During the game when not all characters have showed up, you can sometimes guess which empty spot will belong to whom. For example there is a 1 character linking to Neky that is not linked to anyone else, so I could guess that was Joshua, and that another character linking only to Joshua was probably Hazuki, hinting that the 2 Composers are related before either of them even showed up.

Hazuki only showed up for 5 minutes, but his presence is so vital and true to the game that I think he is the most memorable out of the new cast. The two Composers have such an intriguing bond, with their yin/yang or phoenix/dragon themes, opposite color design, the sempai/kouhai tone and the way they keep some sort of distance/work relationship as if it’s mandatory between Higher beings, yet at the same time they can talk so casually because they are truly equal – and different from one another. I have written a separate meta on them here.

Some people pointed out, that all Shinjuku characters’ names and themes are based off Hanafuda cards and the Phoenix in Hanafuda belongs to the Paulownia suit – which is Joshua’s name flower. This is so interesting because it feels like the creators somehow saw it as a sign to interweave the Shibuya and Shinjuku storylines together. Though it doesn’t come out much on the surface, it’s fascinating nonetheless considering both Josh and Haz had at some point interfered with the other town’s affairs.

“Shibuya tour with Haz” was such a special scene, as it happened between 2 characters who do not/no longer have a reason to care about Shibuya, on the subject of what is worth saving about Shibuya. Hazuki carried out the purification of Shinjuku and stepped in to restore Shibuya just as part of his job and unlike Hanekoma or Joshua who both possess profound understanding of humanity, he really didn’t know humans at all. Rindo’s irrational wish invoked in him a sense of curiosity, to try gambling on something irrationally and learning a bit of what his senior have experienced. With all the pieces put together, it provides an overview on Higher beings as a whole, and that Joshua and Hanekoma are really the odd ones out with Hazuki being somewhere in between them and the rest.

The old friends

It’s easy to have returning characters overshadow the new cast as they have already matured out of their personal story arc and stayed in our hearts for all this time. In the end, I have managed to enjoy both the old and new cast separately and altogether, and they will both find their own place in our memory of this game for the long term.

Sho is truly as crazy as ever, the game wouldn’t be the same if Sho is any less of what he is. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like Neky or Beat is younger than Nagi at all, with moments when it seems like Neky has aged 14 years instead of 3 years. His friendship with Coco surprised me pleasantly, and their interaction together with Beat was fun to watch. Rhyme’s found a new dream and her friendship with Kaie is precious too, especially considering that she can still talk to him online after the game ended. Josh and Neku’s interaction suggested that they have resolved the past and are on equal terms now, they even parted ways in good spirit and I don’t feel any worry about them like I did before.

Neku and Shiki’s reunion scene was beautiful, theirs is such a special bond that it has grown and supported them even without being able to see each other. I am so happy to see them all again and that they stay true to who they are, albeit looking more grown up, cooler and happier than ever before.

Overall, NEO can’t become a classic on par with the OG, but is definitely a good sequel and a good game in its own rights. I’m happy with whether or not there will be a 3rd game to complete the 3 monkeys theme, but if there will be – I hope the creators can really find the time to learn from the last 2 games and start over with a fresh mindset and strong core.

#neotwewy #neotwewyspoilers #ntwewy #ntwewy spoilers #neo the world ends with you #twewy #review #meta #neo twewy #shoka sakurane #rindo kanade #tsugumi matsunae

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fallintosanity · 4 years

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What are your thoughts on 7 Remake’s ~controversial~ ending? It’s been a few weeks now since I finished and I legit feel like I’ve journeyed through all 5 stages of grief and finally landed on Acceptance 😅

haha that’s fair! I have a lot of thoughts about the remake, but they’re coming from three different angles.

(Spoilers under the cut obvs; also this got fucklong even after I cut a bunch of non-ending-related thoughts, and I apologize to those of you on mobile)

From the POV of someone who played and loved the original

Overall, I really enjoyed the remake, ending and all. I replayed the OG prior to the remake’s release, finishing literally four hours before the remake became available in North America, but it had still been months since I did the Midgar parts so it wasn’t too immediately fresh in my mind. Still, I was impressed by how faithful the remake is to the OG for the vast majority of the game. They noticeably cleaned up a few things, like Tseng slapping Aerith, which didn’t age well or stopped making sense with regards to the greater Compilation, which was nice to see. But they also doubled down on some of the ridiculousness of the original. I can’t tell you how much I cackled when the Hell House showed up, or how many times I said to my fiance in joy/disbelief, “They really managed to fit that in!”

I also love all the little nods to the greater Compilation. I saw one interview excerpt from like... 2015 or 2014 or something that said the Remake is considered canon to the Compilation, and the content of the Remake itself suggests this. While some of the cameos could be considered nothing more than cameos (as much as I love Kunsel, I don’t think his name being dropped means anything other than that they needed a name and wanted to give a nod to him), there are other clear hints that Crisis Core and The Kids Are Alright, at minimum, are canon to the Remake. Hojo mentions “S and G type” SOLDIERs, i.e., Sephiroth-type and Genesis/Gillian-type. (Roche is a G type I am not taking arguments on this point) The description of the Buster Sword says it carries the hopes and dreams of those who came before, implying more than just Zack (i.e., Angeal). Zack’s scene right before he charges the ShinRa army is shot-for-shot the one from Crisis Core, which could have just been a nod, but the fact that he also says the same lines as the original is telling. There’s a lot of lore loaded into those lines. Leslie and Kyrie are both from The Kids Are Alright (which makes me wonder if the third ShinRa half-brother is floating around somewhere). You could make an argument for Before Crisis being partially or completely canon to the remake as well, since someone mentions a previous assassination attempt on the President, which happened in BC.

But now we get into the issue of whether Advent Children is canon to the remake, i.e., the ending and the thing you actually asked about. ^^; This is where I’m more torn. My initial reaction to the ending was “Oh crap, we went from FFVII-Remake to Kingdom Hearts - oh shit now we’re in Advent Children - oh fuck now we’re in fanfiction-land.” Which... is definitely not what I was expecting from the ending of Part 1.

On first playthrough it feels a bit like they overplayed their hand with Sephiroth in the ending: “everyone wants a Sephiroth fight in a FFVII game, so we’ll give them a Sephiroth fight”. I’ve seen a lot of complaints about the fact that Sephiroth appears in person in the Midgar sequence, when in the OG all we see of him before Kalm is the aftermath of President Shinra’s murder. I do think Sephiroth’s appearances prior to the ending were done well - the writers clearly intended to emphasize Cloud’s mental issues, and Sephiroth is too big a part of them to ignore. His appearances prior to the top of Shinra Tower both serve as a bone tossed to those who wanted to see him in the remake, and set up the Cloud-Sephiroth relationship a lot earlier and in more depth. You can see how utterly terrified Cloud is every time Sephiroth is around - even sometimes frozen into immobility. Depending on how things go with the Kalm flashback, this may also help cue new players in to just how wrong things are with Cloud. (After all, a SOLDIER First shouldn’t be afraid of another SOLDIER First, should he?) But the final fight against Sephiroth, or at least, a clone wearing Sephiroth’s face, felt premature, out of place, something that’s only there to appease people who wanted to fight Sephiroth now.

Aside from the Sephiroth thing, I’m reserving judgment a bit on the ending as a whole. On the one hand, I’m deeply curious to see where the story goes from here, and how the writers use their newfound freedom (more on that in a minute). On the other hand, I don’t want this to turn into Kingdom Hearts 4, and I don’t trust Nomura in that regard, especially after all the bullshit that went on with KH3, Verum Rex, and FFXV/versus 13. I love Nomura, but like George Lucas, he desperately needs someone to rein in, edit, and shape his ideas.

I’m also not sure how I feel about all the theories being thrown out there - such as that at least one of the Sephiroths we see is the one from after AC, somehow flung back in time to fuck things up; or that the OG was, 999-style, Aerith seeing into the future and now in the remake she’s taking control to put everything on the path she wants. They’re interesting, for sure, and I think that with careful handling, it’s possible Squenix might be able to pull one of them off - but given what I know of Squenix (again, more on that later), I don’t trust them to do it well. I am, to be blunt, very concerned that later installments of the remake are going to turn into an incoherent tug-of-war between those who want to be faithful to the original, and Nomura’s desire to inject weird Kingdom Hearts nonsense everywhere.

I say this with all the love to Kingdom Hearts, but it’s a very specific kind of story and it’s not what I want to see in my FFVII.

On a writing meta level

On the meta level, I’m fascinated by the choice to go with the whole Whispers/Arbiters of Fate thing. I don’t know how much of that is pure Nomura-injected BS vs how much was a deliberate choice by the writing team, but for right now I’m going to assume it was mostly a deliberate and unanimous choice.

I’ve seen a lot of other Remake opinions along the lines of a reluctant, “I guess they had to put the Whispers in there because a perfect remake wouldn’t have been satisfying to everyone. There’s always someone who would have complained.” I... don’t think that’s entirely true. Like, yeah, sure, someone’s always going to complain if it’s not a pixel-perfect remake, but based on the overall satisfaction I’ve seen from OG fans (including myself) regarding the parts that are true to the original, I think Squenix would have done just fine if that was the path they chose. And given how much attention they paid to making most of the game into a nearly-perfect recreation, I think the writers knew it.

So why’d they go the whole Whispers route?

My guess would be that the writers were giving themselves freedom, on a meta level, with the Whispers. It’s a way of both poking fun at, and solving, their own dilemma: do we make a perfect, hi-res copy of the original? Or do we change things to make it our own?

The “change something to make it your own” is a longstanding trope when someone new is put in charge of something old. You see it in everything from Disney live-action remakes to new managers who change their employees’ routines just to “make an impact”. Most of the time, these changes are neutral / un-impactful at best, or outright frustrating / terrible at worst. I wonder if the Remake writing team wasn’t fully aware of this, and possibly tangled up in knots internally about how to handle it. Would it be seen as a bad, “make it their own” change to have Tseng not slap Aerith? What about adding Chocobo Sam, Madam M, and Andrea Rhodea to the Wall Market sequence? What about the changes to how the Avalanche gang reacts to Cloud, now that we have full animation and voice acting and it’s clear Avalanche has no reason to want to keep him around except for Jessie being horny on main? Where’s the line?

I could see the Whispers being the writing team’s way of making sure they stay in line where it’s important, while also giving themselves the freedom to make the updates needed to allow the remake to work. They’re kind of a meta nod to the audience, a “don’t worry! If we get too far out of line, the Whispers will bring us back.” In that sense, the entire ending where you (the player) kill the Whispers and free yourself (the player) from destiny is you giving the writers permission to continue making those small changes.

In FFXV, almost the entire ending sequence is a cutscene: Noctis on the throne, being murdered by his ancestors and descending into the spirit realm. But there’s one single quick-time event in there, one point where the player has to take action and push a button. It’s not even difficult, and on the surface it seems pointless. Except, if you don’t, Noctis lives. (Trapped in purgatory maybe, but he’s still there.) If you never push that button, Noctis doesn’t sacrifice his spirit and those of the Lucii to destroy Ardyn and wipe the Scourge from Eos. By asking - requiring - the player to push that button to commit that final act, the game makes the player complicit in Noct’s sacrifice. It’s a powerful moment, and similar to what (I suspect) the Remake writers intended with the Whispers.

Because they could have left the Whispers in forever. They could have had them be a continuous presence throughout all episodes of the Remake, a little reminder that no matter what tweaks the writers might make to update the story, to “make it their own”, the Arbiters of Fate will ensure things are on track. That things will play out exactly as in the original. But by asking the player to destroy the Arbiters, the writers are asking for the player’s permission to make changes. And by killing the Arbiters, you’re granting it. Because, just like you can keep Noctis alive by not pushing the button when prompted, you can keep the original game more-or-less on track by never stepping through that portal, never killing the Arbiters. But if you do step through that portal and go through with it, you’re agreeing to accept that things might change, thus freeing the writers from the constant double jeopardy of changing things vs keeping them exactly the same.

On a business meta level

As cool as (I think) that all sounds, the bigger question is, can Square Enix actually pull it off? And here’s where I start to have my most significant doubts. After the FFvs13/FFXV debacle and the hopeless mess that was KH3, I do not trust Nomura to tell a coherent story, even if it’s supposedly a retelling of an existing, well-known story. I don’t know anything about the inner workings or politics at Square Enix, other than that there are politics at play, so in fairness to him I can’t really say it’s because he himself is bad at telling a story, or just doesn’t have the support he needs to convey his vision well. But that gets into other issues with Squenix. We know their last several major games have had long and troubled developments. Someone way more attuned than me to the Japanese video games industry can talk in depth about why; all I know is that it happened (is happening?) and that it’s something of a miracle the remake came out as well as it did.

On top of that, I’m a bit concerned that even if Squenix can get (and keep) its shit together, it might be up against external forces that constrain how it can tell the story of FFVII in the present. For example, from what I’ve heard, the reason Crisis Core never got ported the way so many other games did, and the reason Genesis Rhapsodos has never been seen outside it and a Dirge of Cerberus cameo, is due to image licensing fights with Gackt, Genesis’s face model. CC established Genesis as a key player in the events leading up to the original game’s story, and enough hints have been dropped about CC in the remake that, like I said earlier, it appears to be canon. But if Squenix can’t reach an agreement to use the character again, they might be trapped in a corner where they either have to completely rewrite the parts of the story involving Genesis, or dance around his existence.

And on top of all that, it’s just expensive and time-consuming as hell to make games on the remake’s scale. Everyone expects the PS4 to be retired by the time Remake Part 2 comes out, which is going to pose huge logistical issues for releasing it. Squenix has been having a rough time of it lately, from what I’ve heard - are they, as a company, capable of handling all those logistical issues? I don’t know, and that makes me nervous.

Still, they did do a remarkable job with the remake overall, even grappling with the pandemic around the launch date. So maybe they’re getting their shit together again, and things will be smooth sailing from here. We’ll have to wait and see.

#anonymous #final fantasy vii #ffvii #ffvii remake #spoilers #meta #sanity replies #sanity talks a lot #tumblr massively fucked up the formatting somehow sorry

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scatterpatter · 4 years

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Some expanded thoughts on FF7R under the cut [SPOILERS]

So! Overall I freaking LOVED the remake and I can’t wait to see the rest! Midgar feels so alive and expanded, you really feel attached to everyone, it’s... muah! Honestly a lot of the points I’m gonna make are more nitpicks than anything. I won’t make any commentary on the gameplay because I watched a let’s play instead of playing by myself(im broke and cant afford a PS4 and $60 game >_>)

So the designs are GORGEOUS... no, the entire GAME is gorgeous. Midgar looks so good and detailed, there’s so much great implementation of color theory! Cloud is sooooo good looking!!! Barret and Aerith and Sephiroth are all GORGEOUS! Reno Rude Tseng and Rufus.. AAAA!!! The only slight complain I have is that- okay so Tifa looks AWESOME, but I honestly wish she wasn’t so skinny. Like she’s a melee fighter, but her waist and arms are so thin! I wish they gave her a bit more tone and muscle, but, oh well. I honestly can’t stop staring at the character models they look SO good

Plot-wise, I really like most of the changes/additions they made! Especially with Biggs, Wedge, and Jessie. They’re wonderful and I love them and did I mention that I love them because they’re just so dorky!!! And good!!!

Honestly, I like that Aerith is actually written to be likeable. I know that doesn’t seem like much but a lot of games fall into the trap of telling you that you’re supposed to like the female protag(looking at you, Breath of the Wild) or tell you that she’s a strong character, but they fail to show that, so the player feels like they’re just being told to get attached. Aerith, though, is actually really likeable in this game!!! She’s cute and down-to-earth, really dorky and even snarky, easily seeing past Cloud’s tough-guy act, and she can fight! It’s just so nice to see a game that shows a strong female protag instead of just telling you.

Legit everyone is horny for Cloud and I’m so here for it

Okay so like. I love Roche. I didn’t at first but he quickly grew on me. He’s so awfully chaotic and I just- I love him. I’m mad that he was just kinda forgotten, though. Like! He could’ve shown up at the ending chase!!!

THEY REALLY WROTE HOJO TO BE AS CREEPY AS POSSIBLE HUH. Like I’m not complaining because like he’s basically the reason why everything happened, but! Ahhhh he makes me squirm he’s a creep with a gross science fetish and I wanna stab himmmmm

Okay so. President Shinra is a little bit TOO stereotypically evil? Like having a gold statue of himself and not even caring about sabotaging one of his own reactors when one little console gets destroyed??? Like it’s almost comical how evil he’s written to be. Though, I do like the scene where he calls Barret out on his ideals, that was neat!

Nowww, Heidegger Scarlet Palmer and Reeve? MUAH. Heidegger and Scarlet are written so sadistically but like in such a likeable way, especially Heidegger. God I hate them both but you just love to hate them!!! Palmer is HILARIOUS- I love how he’s written to be the spoiled kid whose parents forced the other kids to include him so he’s just there even though he doesn’t do anything. And Reeve? Well...

SO REEVE IS MY FAVORITE ATM SINCE WE DON’T HAVE VINCENT YET, AND REEVE IS JUST... <3 <3 <3 Okay so first off, his design is perfect. He doesn’t really stand out in the same way that Heidegger Scarlet and Palmer do. He just has a normal build, normal suit, normal hair slicked back- he just looks like a normal employee, totally inconspicuous... which is very fitting considering how he ends up being undercover and needs to look inconspicuous ;)

Though Reeve shows clear signs of overworking himself and being emotionally abused by his coworkers which... sucks. I mean it’s good writing but I feel so awful for him- Like you know it’s bad when someone just has to hold up a hand to get you to shut up and sit down. I like that he tries to do good things but steps down when he’s told to, that he’s empathetic but cowardly. It does a great job at setting up his character arc in future chapters <3

Okay so one thing- I thought the build-up for the plate dropping was amazing, but honestly... the plate itself falling was slightly underwhelming, to be completely honest. Like- I just didn’t feel the impact that a plate falling would have! Mainly because, you don’t see a single death which is interesting. Like you see people running from falling debris, but legit not a single death is implied. Honestly? I thought the scene would have been far more impactful if they showed:

Seventh Heaven actually being destroyed

The people topside reacting to the ground beneath them collapsing and them falling to their deaths(They only tried to evacuate Sector 7 slums! Not the topside!!!)

More people actually being implied to have been crushed(No, Im not counting Wedge). Like in the original FF7 there’s a scene where someone’s watching tv and you see the plate falling from outside the window- and there’s a reporter just doing his normal shit before he suddenly looks up and things go to static- like- thats an intense scene and I wish the remake did more stuff like that!

They do great showing people REACTING to the plate falling which is why its so appalling to me that they dont show much of the actual devastation DURING plate fall

I LOVE that Cait Sith shows up at the plate falling! It shows that Reeve actually tried to warn people(something he asked to do and was denied earlier), even if he was too late. The only problem I have is that new players who dont know who Cait Sith is will be horribly confused as to who and why he’s there???

Also, when the crew goes back to Sector 7, you don’t really... feel the impact right away. Keep in mind, an entire section of city just fell onto another section of city WITH the supports holding it up, there should have been way more rubble. Yet, the area where Seventh Heaven is just... looks like it was hit with a major earthquake. There should be way more rubble, like mountains of it. It’s weird since the opening cinematic really captures the scope of how huge Midgar is, but the plate falling just doesn’t really show the scope of how much devastation there was to losing an entire plate.

The scope of it is done a bit better when climbing up Sector 7, but I still feel like the weight and scope of destruction isn’t lived up to its full potential.

Okay so- Wedge and Biggs. ... Yeah, it takes away from the impact of their deaths to have them not die. I mean, I can’t make a total opinion on this just yet, because the other parts haven’t come out yet, but... if FF7R is gonna keep them alive, they better have a good reason for it tbh.

They might have done a little bit too much foreshadowing with Cloud and Aerith? Like I like Cloud having memory issues, it’s kept pretty vague... but him going “Mother?” with Jenova is a little bit too spoiler-y. Like yeah you gotta tease his whole thing but like- don’t give it away this soon!!!

I also don’t mind Seph showing up as much as he does. Like, in the original, you don’t even hear about him until close to the end of the Midgar arc. Obvi since the remake ONLY covers the Midgar arc so far, I totally understand bringing him in sooner. Again, having the clones existing might be a little too spoilery for the big twists later on, but I can let it slide since it’s still treated as very “wtf” and I’m sure anyone new to the story hasn’t put it together yet.

Did I mention how much I love Seph he’s so creepy and his eyes are gorgeous and he’s so intimidating by just being there

And the Whispers... I honestly didn’t like them. I kept forgetting that they existed honestly. They just feel so... detached from the plot. I don’t mind adding new content/story, but the Whispers just... didn’t feel well-implemented. They also felt really campy towards the end. Like, the fact that they could un-stab Barret and shield Avalanche from car accidents while they were escaping? They were legit like “no you can’t die even if you tried because fate” and takes away any tension of the scene because... well, they know they cant die.

That being said, the ending was interesting. I uh. It was interesting! So they actually defeat fate itself in order to change... who knows what. The future, maybe even the past??? I’ve got many thoughts on this

If the future is changed, that can be exciting since people who know the original’s plot won’t know what’s gonna happen next so like- okay!

If the past was changed... y’all know I’m talking about Zack. Was fate changed so that he could live? Keep in mind, we see Whispers surrounding Midgar before they dissipate and Zack’s like “ohey did I get all of em?”, implying that fate would have forbade Zack from ever getting to Midgar. Having the team defeat fate means... Zack may have now reached Midgar.

Is alternate reality/timeline stuff going to happen now???

Cloud’s character revolves around Zack dying. What’ll happen to Cloud now???

I feel so bad for people new to the plot who don’t know who Zack is.

Nomura... you madman.

So with the ending... Nomura and Squenix is setting something up. They’re going for something huge. I uh. I fear, honestly! Because this could very likely get WAY too ambitious and WAY too confusing(Think Dream Drop Distance’s bullshit plot), and could totally fall on its face and end up being Squenix’s biggest flop of all time. But... if this succeeds and they actually pull off whatever they’re trying to pull... holy shit. I would be floored.

I honestly am a bit afraid that the plot will be too confusing for new players. Like- no one would know whats going on with Zack unless they knew the original plot, so like while this would be a great game for FF7 fans, I’m really worried that it won’t be a good game for people new to the series.

Cloud in a dress is the greatest thing and I’m so happy they kept that scene I love him so much the entire scene is so queer <3

But overall, despite some nitpicks, it was a SUPER SOLID game and I’m soooo hype to see where they go with it! I wanna see Cait and Yuffie and Cid and Vincent!!!!!!!!!

#ff7r #I RAMBLE A LOT #ff7r spoilers

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nadziejastar · 4 years

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The Meaning of Saïx’s Scar

A sigil is a symbol you create with the intention of changing your reality in accordance with your will. All sigils are encoded with a specific purpose, for example, to attract a romantic partner, to set strong boundaries, to be more financially prosperous – the possibilities are limitless. While sigils were used in the past to symbolize and conjure up spirits, these days, sigils are used in a personal way to symbolically represent and manifest our own desires.

The Recusant’s Sigil is based on Greek letter chi. In Kingdom Hearts lore, the meaning is “death” and “endings”. But it’s not just a letter. It’s a magic symbol.

The Recusant’s Sigil (異端の印 Itan no shirushi, lit. “Mark of heresy”) is a symbol designed by Xehanort to represent the rejection of a Nobody from his original persona. It is incorporated into the new names of each of the original members of Organization XIII, and is derived from Xehanort’s sleeping memories of the χ-blade.

It was placed in each member’s name to represent the rejection of their original self. Since each member was to become a vessel for Xehanort’s heart and mind, the original persona needed to die.

Sigils are essentially like little seeds that are planted within the unconscious mind. Many things enter the depths of our minds, but not all of them are placed there intentionally or take root. The symbolic nature of the sigil also helps bypass the rational (skeptical) mind and enter the unconscious where possibilities are endless.

This might be why a simple symbol on Sora’s clothing had such a powerful effect on him. The “X” was on the clothing of Terra, Aqua, and Ven and also Riku in KH1.

What gives sigils their power is the energy and intention behind them – and that is what helps them to sprout and blossom into manifestation. They are activated by meditation.

This is probably why Sora’s Nobody (who, according to Nomura, was born with Ventus’s heart) was made to stare at the Recusant’s Sigil when he was given his new identity as “Roxas,” an anagram of “Sora” with an “X”. It was to subconsciously program him to stay unaware.

Roxas was a very worthy candidate for the New Organization XIII.

He was a good candidate due to his lack of self-awareness. But eventually he became too aware of himself and could no longer be used.

Buzz was afraid of losing his self-awareness and attacking his friends. And that’s exactly what happened.

At the Kid Corral, where Buzz was taken when he was possessed, Xehanort revealed that empty puppets can be given strong hearts. Apparently, the Toy Box was the world where he first learned to create vessels.

Secret Report 4: Experiments of the Heart – Notes on Subject X, Excerpt 2

Subject's memories have not returned, and our conversations remain less than lucid. My pilot studies used a handful of subjects, but none possessed the fortitude to endure them. Ultimately, all suffered mental collapse. I knew it would be a heavy blow to lose a subject as unique as she. Upon discovering the tests I've been conducting, my master demanded that I cease my work immediately and destroy what research I have compiled. Worse still, he ordered the release of my remaining subjects. She is gone. Where is Subject X now?

This is also the world where the report on Subject X is located, and it’s also at the Kid Corral. Subject X had no memories and was not lucid. It took a week for them to speak their first words, like Roxas. That means they lacked self-awareness, like Roxas did at fist. This would make them a very worthy candidate for a vessel, like Roxas.

Empty husks? Is he saying they’re going to break them with sorrow and put another heart into them…? Or did they already do it?

“Translation—they were gonna turn all the members into Xehanort.”

“X” represents the clash of pure light vs. pure darkness. A vessel needs to be suitable to contain Xehanort’s heart of pure of darkness, so only the strongest hearts will suffice.

The letter χ can be pronounced both "key" and "kye" (leading to some confusion) and symbolizes the perfect crossing of light and darkness. The χ-blade can be forged via a high-dimensional clash between those two poles. It is believed that the Recusant's Sigil also derives from χ.

Such a heart is rare and valuable. Even most of the original organization was unworthy. A vessel would need to be broken by sorrow, but its heart could not totally collapse. It’s only natural that Xehanort would want to use such a unique subject as his vessel.

“As your flesh bears the sigil, so your name shall be known as that of a recusant.”

And the name “X” fits this concept perfectly. The experiments involved the darkness of the heart. All the subjects’ hearts collapsed. Subject X was the only exception.

I could not even recall my name. I was simply called "X" there.

Isa probably was given his scar at the same time he was given his new name, which happened to him as a human. He was no longer Isa, or even Saïx, but “X”.

“I’ll put the sigil of the recusant into your name once more,” Xemnas said.

Sigil of the recusant…? What’s that?

In the Japanese version, Xemnas actually doesn’t say anything to Sora about his flesh bearing the sigil. He says he’ll put the sigil into his name once more. And that actually makes a lot more sense. I don’t know why he said it to Sora in the English version. Maybe it was an error and that was actually a line meant for BBSV2 and Isa? I’m not sure. But it does fit Isa a lot more than Sora.

Sigils are activated by focusing on the desired outcome. But it’s important to use strong phrasing. Instead of saying “I want”, you say “I am". This ingrains it into your subconscious more readily.

Xemnas spoke like that to Roxas while he was in his trance-like state. He told him he felt nothing...

...and that nothing was real. He left no ambiguity about it. It’s a form of programming he likely did to all the Nobodies he recruited, which is why they had such a strong belief that they felt nothing, despite evidence to the contrary.

Xemnas didn’t say that he wanted Roxas to be a new person.

He told him that he was a new person. He was no longer Sora or Ventus---he was Roxas. Roxas held many of Sora’s memories inside of him, as did Xion. When they combined, they would create a complete Sora Replica.

Besides meditation, there are other, darker, methods of sigil activation, like in the use of black magic. Sexual climax is mentioned in reference to ritual sex magic. Sex magic is most potent at the time of orgasm, since that its when the energies of the two (or more) parties resonate the most strongly. But that isn’t really something a series like Kingdom Hearts focuses on, obviously. Another type of method involves pain.

If Roxas’s sigil was activated by meditation, I think Isa’s sigil was activated by pain. And receiving such a scar would be obviously be physically painful. It definitely was carved deeply into his face. These dark undertones are what made Saïx/Isa such an interesting character to me.

The scar is located directly over his “mind’s eye.”

It’s a good place to put the sigil when you are trying to get the subject to lose self-awareness---to renounce its sense of self. In a way, receiving the scar may have been a way of programming him to stay mindless and empty. And it’s why he cannot see Xion.

Xemnas’s goal was to conquer the human heart and claim it as his own. And I think this is what he did to Subject X, which is why Isa was the first non-apprentice organization member, and one of the first vessels, along with Braig. Braig was special because he wanted to be a vessel. Isa was just Xehanort’s lab rat.

When Xemnas was telling Sora about the mind control experiments, he said he learned of the heart’s folly.

Which is similar to what he said on Day 95 during his speech.

“That which we treasure has power over us, Roxas. His heart is captive to it. And that makes it his weakness.”

Day 95 takes place at the Beast’s Castle. Every time Roxas goes there, it’s to figure out the Beast’s motivation for fighting. Roxas simply wants to understand the heart, but Xaldin wants to figure out the Beast’s weakness. And after Roxas goes there, he always talks to Axel afterwards. The heart has power over you when you hold something dear.

I think the reason the Beast was chosen to parallel Axel was because of Lea and Isa’s past. The Beast is cursed, he is a character that has anger and rage which is analogous to Saïx’s berserk state, and the key to breaking the spell over him is love.

Xaldin thought the rose was the Beast’s weakness. But it wasn’t. It was wanting to protect the people in the castle, especially Belle.

I think Nomura is a smart guy and knew exactly what he was writing.

I don’t think it ever would have been made explicit or unambiguously canon in a series like Kingdom Hearts. But I do think that in the writer’s room at least, the understanding was that Isa and Lea had romantic feelings for each other. This was hinted at in a subtle manner. Isa’s love for Lea and his desire to protect him was his weakness, which got him turned into a vessel. This was supposed to be the surprising twist that would make Isa worthy to be in the epilogue. Not the fact that he was looking for a random girl or that he got Roxas a vessel. He deserved to be redeemed by his own merits.

In 358/2 Days, the Beast wanted to protect the people he cared about. He desired love more than anything.

This was used as his weakness to get him to fall to darkness. Xaldin told him that he’d never find love and this made him angry and full of rage.

He became full of darkness and lost control of himself, like Buzz did and he attacked his friends without realizing it.

Husks that had been made to throw away their hearts—in other words, they were going to plant another heart into those who couldn’t bear the pain…? Or, did they actually do that?

“They were going to turn all the Organization members into Xehanort.”

Lea was Isa’s weakness.

He was the key to causing Isa the most sorrow, sadness, and pain, which could then be turned into mindless rage. The Beast’s pain was feeling like a monster unworthy of love. For Isa, I think it was loneliness and the pain of losing Lea.

Although the Beast was under Xaldin’s dark influence, he was also acting on his own subconscious feelings. He was in a trance when he went on a rampage. But deep down, all he wanted was to protect his servants, which is why locked them in the dungeon.

I think Lea got his tear marks as a Nobody. When the manga zoomed in on them, Axel was thinking about harming Kairi. Without a heart, he never had to worry about feeling inner conflict or doubt about what he needed to do to achieve his goals. That’s why I think his tears represent his willingness to give up his heart, so he could get his best friend back. They also represent his pain over everything he lost as a Nobody. His life, his heart, his freedom, and his best friend.

Since Isa still had his scar when he was recompleted, he must have gotten it as a human. The manga also does a close-up of Saïx’s scar, giving a hint to its true meaning. It happened right after the scene of Axel’s tear mark, actually.

Saïx was hunting Axel down and then became extremely enraged, saying that Axel’s desire for friendship was based on an illusion created by his memories.

I think Saïx was subjected to the same little speech Roxas was after becoming a Nobody. He thought he never felt anything.

But like with Axel, he also became enraged at Roxas.

He says something very similar to what he told Axel, too. Isa’s purpose as a human was protecting Lea. Saïx remembers this. If Isa received his scar while Xehanort was trying to inflict the most pain possible on him, it makes sense that Lea was involved. What would hurt Isa the most is losing the thing he treasures most---which is Lea. I think it's why Saïx felt such resentment towards Axel when he made new friends, and ESPECIALLY when he left the organization. It was Isa's love for Lea that caused him to lose everything. It's understandable that he'd hate Axel if he thought he turned his back on him after all that. He was extremely hurt, even if the feelings were technically not his own.

His scar is really prominent in these scenes, too.

Basically, I think that the X-shaped scar represents Isa's physical and emotional pain as Subject X, which was used to break him, capture his heart, and turn him into a vessel during the experiments on the darkness of the heart. They created darkness in Isa using his love for Lea against him. The "X" also represents the "death" of Isa.

#kh meta #kh #kingdom hearts #kh isa #kh saix #kh lea #leaisa #akusai #kh axel

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transgamerthoughts · 4 years

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Final Fantasy 7 Remake: Thoughts and Ramblings

Surprised to dust this off but I want to collect my thoughts quickly now that credits are rolling on Remake:

In general, I enjoyed it quite a lot. As one of many players with a unique relationship to the original (I first “played” it watching a childhood friend over the course of several sleepovers before playing on my own and occasionally returning to it) I was skeptical. I’ve express some of that skepticism at Kotaku , a website I write at. Remakes and remasters sometimes fall short or deviate in strange ways. Remake forges its own path and I’m grateful for it.

SPOILERS AHEAD KIDDOS

So! Here’s some scattered thoughts. Maybe they end up on Kotaku, maybe not. And while I’m loathe to immediately rush to create content on a Sunday night, this game has my mind spinning. Here we go.

The characterizations in this game are very strong, perhaps stronger than the original’s Midgar section. Some of that is owed to a very bad localization in ‘97 (you can get insight into that from my former colleague Tim Rogers’ series here) but Remake takes a lot of effort to allow the cast to breathe. That can come from the ways in which Cloud alters his way of taking with Tifa, and it can come in the moment where Barrett is more explicitly an ideologue. It’s quite good even if the script has a flaw that we’ll talk about in a second.

That flaw is, frankly, that if you’ve not played the original then Remake is going to end up impenetrable in the final hours. This is particularly true once characters like Zack are brought into the fold and the visuals begin to mirror the original. (See: the hard cuts before Sephiroth and Clouds final duel mirroring the Omnislash moment from ‘97.) I don’t think that diminishes the character work here but I think that the more interesting meta-narrative stuff *so* damn crucial to this game that I can’t imagine what a newcomer will think.

Connected to this, I’ve seen folks disappointed that this is not a perfect remake but in this instance, I think that sentiment is misplaced. Valid, but shortsighted? You can’t make Final Fantasy VII today. Not in the way it existed in ‘97. Which isn’t to say the visuals or script but the context cannot be reproduced. New hardware, FMVs taking a forefront, an advertising campaign that positioned the game in competition with movies, and a cultural splash that the series hasn’t ever quite replicated. Because the weight of expectation hovers over Remake—folks have been obsessed with a new version since the PS3 tech demo stirred imagination at E3 2020—the game *needs* to be about that. To be a game about this moment, the moment gamers have waited decades for, Remake needs to be about itself in a very explicit way.

I can’t not see the Whispers and Arbiters of Fate as anything other than stand-ins for gamers, fans, and the culture as a whole. That’s an obvious reading but an undeniable one. The core question of Remake doesn’t really have much to do with the fictional stakes. It’s this: who owns Final Fantasy VII, and who owns the Remake? Is it the story tellers or the players? I have a cheat answer: it belongs to the characters. In unbinding themselves from player expectation, they claim ownership over the narrative now.

Aeris just flat out knows she’s in a sequel/alt-timeline thing. Her final line is about missing the surety of something as presumably ever present at the metal sky of Midgar’s plates.

I like the combat here more than FFXV, which isn’t saying a lot but worth saying. There’s more participation from the player. That’s it. I don’t think *more* active choice inherently makes a combat system better but it is the key reason this works better than XV.

Character swapping breaks things somewhat since enemy aggro is (save for using the provoke materia) focused on the player. Wish the combat design took this into consideration a bit more. It’s the one glaring flaw in the system.

Tifa is the most fun to play as in this game. It’s not even a contest. Starshower is overpowered as hell and Chi Trap rules. Love using her to increase the potency of the stagger meter when the time comes.

Fights do get occasionally Too Busy. Airbuster is a big culprit here. Too many phases for what was essentially a jobber of a boss in the original game.

Train Graveyard section is an atrocious pace killer as well. Again: “too many notes.”

I never found the Nail Bat and that was a bit of a bummer.

I tweeted out a quote from Barrett this weekend and it made the rounds. In general, for this game, Barrett works best in this revolutionary mode even if certain scenes (Shinra middle manager for instance) deploy visual language that’s dated. Of any character, he has the highest highs and lowest lows. Not surprising.

re: that tweet some folks kinda lost their shit about it(?) but I think the quote still holds. Remake does a good job of showing *individuals* within Shinra but Barrett does rightly note they are complicit to an extent in Shinra’s crimes. You can disagree with what Barrett does about it but that’s 100% true. Sorry, not sorry. (The discourse today was just a hassle frankly. Multiple things can be true at once, but I don’t think Twitter is a place where that’s ever acknowledged.) Whatever eventual regrets he might feel about methodology in ‘97′s script, he’s not wrong on this individual point. I’m interested to see where he goes as a character when it comes to all this.

Kinda related to the above, Remake arguably does a better job than ‘97 showing the alternative to Shinra. It’s the communal nature of the individual sectors. It’s the Neighborhood Watch and local leaders in Sector 7, the trio in Wall Market. Remake rejects Shinra’s autocracy and favors the various slums communes. This is made ever more clear by how little of Reeve we see in this script. Who are the leaders shaping life into a passable experience in Midgar? It’s not the Urban Planning guy with the cat robot.

Also: hey, is that Cait Sith in the plate drop cutscene? Yep! Hope you played the original or there’s just this sad cat that shows up for 4 four seconds.

Is he a Chad? Well, he’s Chad-ley...

Not sure what to think of the Wutai stuff being more explicit but it feels right for 2020 for a variety of reasons. I’ve never been too interested in FF7′s realpolitik tho. It’s not really much of an expansion so much as a background element but one that’s deployed a bit lazily.

Roche owns in a way I was not expecting. He’s a balls to the wall anime motherfucker and I kinda love him? I’m really, really surprised that (as far as I could tell) he didn’t even come back for the final bike sequence tho.

I don’t really have the energy to litigate or talk about Wall Market much. I think it’s better than the original but pandering in the sense that it’s a very safe and commodified version of queerness. I appreciate that Nomura and folks looked at the original and were like “well, we can’t do *that*” but it doesn’t quite land for me.

That said: “yes, I know, nailed it,” is a fantastic line with a fantastic read from Cloud’s English VA.

Hell House announcers rule. Hell House fight? Kinda terrible actually.

Nice shout out to Kunsel in Shinra Tower. Crisis Core is a messy game but I like Tabata’s work a lot. Even the messy stuff, which is most of it. That game’s story is bonkers but I like Zack and I actually like the idea of the Digital Mind Wave as a mechanic. If nothing else, Squeenix lost a pretty exciting designer when he left.

Less nice? This game’s tendency to pad out dungeons. The whole approach to the Sector 5 reactor comes to mind. Train fight then tunnels then sun lamps then reactor. It’s a lot. Also: all of the extra Hojo stuff. I know we’re padding out like 5 hours but some of the sections could have been abbreviated. Probably would have made the game better.

Even less nice? Zack’s English voice actor. Maybe the only voice actor I didn’t like. Really miss Rick Gomez on this one.

Conversely, Red XIII? They nailed it. 11/10. Nanaki, I love you so much.

Counterstance is an amazing move and I can’t want to carry that over into Hard Mode.

The Jenova fight fuckin’ ripped. I was a bit huffy when I learned through leaks that there was a Jenova fight (since the first fight in the original is on the boat to Costa Del Sol) but this was a great set piece. One of the moments where everything worked.

Also good: Rufus fight. Bad: losing Rufus’ speech to the party.

Not a ton more thoughts right now? Sephiroth fight was good although for all his presence in the story I think we suffer without the full Nibelheim flashback to round things out. In all really liked it. Want to play again pretty much immediately. Will write something more cogent for the site I guess? Got a few ideas. But yeah! entered as skeptic and left mostly a believer on this one.

#final fantasy vii remake #spoilers

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lightlorn · 4 years

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Ship bias for your KH Muses! :D

i am a flawed human being. ll accepting.

Aqua:

Terraqua. This ship is part of the reason I kept crying so hard in KH3, now catch me admitting that on the internet. I love the way they are there for each other in spite of their stark differences, and that they have a lot of unexplored, threadable area in both their coming of age and post-KH3 timelines. Plus any ship I can draw a parallel between my fandom otp and another ship is a good ship.

Xemqua. Nomura was setting something up here and he dropped the ball and I will not take that lying down. You’re telling me they don’t even so much as look at each other during the DLC? Dishonorable, Nomura, truly despicable. There’s so much to work with there, what with the armor and the way you can read a lot of Xemnas’ closest allies in the Org being answers to Terra’s inner circle. If Nomura won’t give me their story, then I’ll write it with a partner.

Aqua/Larxene. There’s basically no other adult women in this series and I am a simple dyke seeking the wlw. I think it would make a fantastic opposites attract cliche with the added bonus of someone that won’t take Larxene’s attitude lying down while simultaneously being able to match her step for step. The Taming of the Nymph, coming soon to an AU near you.

Eraqus:

Xehaqus. This is my end all, be all OTP for the fandom. I have spent almost 100 dollars overall at cons commissioning art of these idiots. They are my phone background and lockscreen. I have an entire fic in my head of their apprentice days and frankly if Dark Road does not live up to the relationship development I have hyped up in my head I will go canon divergent. These fuckers are beautiful and heartbreaking and awful and wonderful and I love them. Bring me all the Xehaqus.

That’s it. I’m so disappointing. I have like one or two OC for him ships and I mean whatever happens in RP happens if relationships develop but oh my God. Xehaqus consumes me.

Invi:

Real talk my Invi is a lesbian and my take on the Foretellers is that she sees them all as her siblings underneath all of her posturing that it’s nothing personal, so I don’t even know what the fandom ships for her are. I’m not even sure who is available to ship with her. Throw whatever of age lady muses you have at her, mutuals, and let’s see where this goes.

Isa:

Isalea. Akusai is also good, but there’s something about their life together after the war ends when they are trying to rebuild and find everything they lost that speaks to my soul. I would never say that if I see an Axel/Lea it’s ‘on sight’ shipping because that’s shitty, but I will say I am that Saix/Isa that is always down to discuss your take on their dynamic and see what we can cobble together.

Xemsai. This will never be a healthy ship, I think, based on the fact my Saix is as likely to use his alleged loyalty and affection to try and get some form of control over his Superior, but there’s a lot that could be fleshed out here. Whatever heart he grows will always belong to his oldest friend, but he will do whatever it takes to see his ambitions fulfilled. He’s trying to use the creature that has used him for over a decade. God. The potential.

Xigsai. By the same card as above, I think if Saix clued into Xigbar being more than simply a bombastic menace, he could try and pull the same using sex and false loyalty to obfuscate his true means on Xigbar. The difference being that Xigbar is, at heart, far more deadly and aware than Xemnas is when it comes to the bigger picture. It’d be Saix putting himself in the mouth of the beast willingly, and not expecting how deeply those teeth can cut when they snap shut on him.

Roxas:

Full disclaimer: I am 25 years old and fleshing out the romantic drama of a teenage boy is not something that super interests me. That said, I do like the concept of Roxas and his brand new heart forming all kinds of bonds, and him eventually starting to register feelings beyond the platonic for certain people. So as far as character development goes, i can see him taking interest in the following:

Hayner. There’s something so coming of age adolescent aggression as a front for latent or closeted affection about them in the simulation, and in the real world they have endless potential. I think Roxas could definitely feel safe enough around Hayner to have something more develop feelings wise. Also Hayner has muscles and that makes Roxas 404 error sometimes regardless of shipping, just as a general Roxas thing.

Xion. It’s a cliche, to be sure, but depending on the Xion and their development, I can see Roxas starting to feel more at home in her presence after they’ve had time to heal and become their own people. This isn’t an on sight shipping thing, and in fact I am super selective about this even while shipping it, but there’s groundwork for a good dynamic and a sort of reunion between them as whole people who come to appreciate each other as more than their initial, shallow idea of friends.

Namine. Was not super hip on this as a kid, especially when I was less discriminating in my Xion tastes, but as an adult I can appreciate their bond. They have a lot of the same trauma in terms of being dehumanized and used by two separate factions in setting, and the two take a lot of risks for one another within the data Twilight Town. I think there’s something to be said for them both to have irrevocable individuality and come together and develop as more than friends over the years.

Riku. Is it trashy? Yes. Is Roxas still tied to Sora somehow? Yes. Would it be hilarious to see Roxas turn a would-be rivalry into accidental flirtation because he’s confused about his feelings? Yes. Riku just standing there suffering while Roxas demands they engage in a passionate battle of lips -- WITS. I don’t even know how serious I am in shipping this, but Riku being Roxas’ emotional training wheels amuses me.

Aaaaand you can’t really have biases for an OC because at that point anything with plot potential, chemistry, and aligning sexualities goes so instead I am just going to shout out Kokoro’s established ships + the muns for being so good to my little mary sue.

Xemkoro/Foxhole. I don’t know how me dipping my toe in the water of shipping with Lucky by saying ‘hey my OC and your Xem could have a cool dynamic’ became like... my entire shipping brand, but here we are. Their entire dynamic breaks me, the way Xemnas is clinging to a past that he wants so badly to have been a part of while Kokoro can’t afford to look back anymore, working too hard to meet future goals is... Everything. Especially in the fact she regards him as a person without hesitation or knowing how much that will come to mean to him. There’s so many layers to them, and they truly work to earn their happy ending, and that is everything to me. Here’s to successful risks and their payoff.

Aquoro. Everything my gay little heart ever wanted: the dichotomy of childhood romantic friendship giving way to adolescent rivalry and a shell of what your relationship used to be that appears so often between girls. That they also represent the Responsible Daughter and Rebel Daughter in Kokoro’s secondary verse, furthering the gulf between them as Aqua continues to follow the Master’s teachings where Kokoro embraces her own ideas about what Eraqus preached is... Chef’s Kiss... And through it all, it’s still Aqua that Kokoro wants to find the most, the one for whom her heart breaks the hardest when she sees what became of her. I owe Lucky my life for giving me this phenomenal wlw content.

Koterra. Kleffy does spoil me. The difference between what Terra dreamed of as a boy and what their reality became, where she is instead his knight and protector while he calls the shots as part of reclaiming his identity is perfect. The way they grow from teenage misunderstandings and dick moves into adults that have a touch more kindness for one another is also good, because it’s all about the character development. Their bond is strong and their support for one another immeasurable. I am heterosexual for one (1) ship. All because Kleffy came up with it on the spot and then put in the effort to make it work, God bless em.

#shipbias;#kcystotheheart

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naylar-draws · 5 years

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so like could you tell us why strickler deserved to die

Lol I was not expecting someone to ask about that tag!

Boy oh boy ask and you shall recieve

(I did not intend for the reply to be this long but like here’s another essay length meta)

I don’t think Strickler as a character deserved to die, he’s far from the most heinous character in TH. But from a storytelling standpoint, I think killing him off in the s3 finale would have improved Trollhunters as a whole. For that point to make sense I’m gonna need to explain a few things first:

~1700 words under the cut

1) It is more or less an unspoken rule that if an action/adventure oriented story (be it a show, film, book, etc) wants to feel like it has real stakes, a character needs to die. Not just any character, but a main character or an important side character. This isn’t always the case, and I personally don’t think that there needs to be a death to make a story feel more real (No one died in ATLA’s finale), but that’s the trend and is often the easiest, most basic way to things. If utilized right, it can have a huge impact (Ned Stark in game of thrones, Boromir in fellowship)

2) A good finale/climax of a story wraps up the story’s themes and emotional core. It emphasizes it in some way, or offers commentary on it. IMHO a lot of TV and comic book finales can fall short because this. And its not necessarily the creators’ faults, its simply the structure of the industry. Often times a tv finale will be made before the creative team knows whether or not there will be a next season, or they’ll only be given a handful of episodes to wrap up the series. Same with comics. Good climaxes that incorporate a story’s theme off the top of my head are TAZ Balance, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Rocky.

3) A character death needs to mean something, either as a way to complete their character arc, or to comment on some overarching theme, or even to further another character’s development. (Boromir again, Gamora in Infinity War - yes I know she’s coming back - all the fucks that die in Last Stand of the Wreckers)

4) Positive actions should have payoffs. This is kind of cynical, but narratively, if a story wants to say that something is good, there should be a tangential positive effect for that action. For example, in TAZ balance, the theme is that you should choose love and that the bonds we build in life are just like really awesome man, and in the finale those bonds were actively used as a positive game mechanic which helped the heroes to defeat the enemy. Even if the story’s message is that we should do good even if it doesn’t benefit us, there’s still a positive effect to doing good that needs to be portrayed, for instance it could be “gets you into heaven” “makes you happy“ or “helps other people”.

Okay so that out of the way, I’m going to look at all of this through the lens of Trollhunters as a standalone series, instead of a trilogy. I know that there might be reasons the creative team decided to kill off some characters and not others that’ll be made apparent in Wizards. But since Wizards is a separate tv show from TH, its quality and the quality of Trollhunters should be looked at both individually as well as together. And since Wizards ain’t out I’m looking at TH on its own.

Oki Doki so, onto the meat of it. Trollhunters doesn’t really have any overarching theme or message. Bravery and becoming a hero could be contenders but imo that’s kinda lukewarm. I think an unrealized theme that could’ve been is that of redemption, and the idea that people can change if motivated to do so or offered a chance. One of the things that makes Tollhunters interesting and unique is its sheer amount of redeemed villains. We have Draal in the first six episodes, then Strickler, NotEnrique, Nomura, and Angor Rot. Not to mention Steve, and Aaarrrgghh, whose redemption arc happened before the show started. There are more redeemed villains than villains that stay villains.

And then there’s the people that change but not for the better, like Merlin, who apparently was once a pure and ideal heart, and potentially Morgana.

And then there’s Jim, who is remarkable because of his heart. He gives people chances, offers them friendship where other Trollhunters would have antagonized them. The theme would be basically give people a chance/the benefit of the doubt, reach out an olive branch, it might just make them friends. (And if they don’t take the opportunity to improve murder their faces.)

The TH climax was adequate, it wrapped up the plot, set up for a sequel, and had a decent escalation of action. But honestly, I personally thought the build up to the finale was much better than the finale itself. Though this is just like my opinion man, and if anyone thought it was great, cool.

The character that dies in the finale is Angor Rot. He changes sides and sacrifices himself helping the team battle Morgana. And, like, I always found it just kind of… meh? Like I’m sad that he died he was a great character but his death scene seems so pointless (like Draal’s). As I mentioned on point 3, Angor’s death doesn’t really mean anything. It doesn’t further another character, comment on a theme, and it’s an okay I guess conclusion to his redemption arc. The issue I have with it is that it’s not the natural conclusion to an arc for a character like him to have. We are never told that Angor Rot fears death. He died once and was miffed about it, but we never see an aversion to dying again. No, we see that Angor’s greatest fears are Morgana, and fading away or some shit. If the creators wanted to really write Angor off the show what they should have done was have him be the one to tackle Morgana into the shadow realm and never come back, thus facing an eternity with the one he fears most, the person who stole his soul and turned him into a slave.

BUT IF SOMEONE HAS TO DIE I think an even better death that would have been even better for the show, would be if Strickler sacrificed himself instead and Angor Rot was used to parallel Draal at the beginning of season 1. This would ultimately bring the show full circle and tie the finale in with the rest of the show, and helped realize a theme about redemption.

Strickler would have to sacrifice himself at some other conveniently point that relates to his character more, and the whole finale would have to be restructured, but here’s why I think it would’ve been better:

Strickler is a character who is introduced in the very beginning of the show and remains a constant throughout. He has the most nuanced and prolonged redemption arc of all the characters. He starts out as a self-serving Starscream trope who looks out for himself above all else. Throughout the show, he falls in love with someone and forms a father/son bond with Jim. If you follow the sort of character arc of someone who starts off cowardly and selfish and then learns to care about others to its logical conclusion, you find yourself at the point where the character must sacrifice something in order to prove their change, usually what they originally value most. Throughout the show we see Strickler try so hard and do so much to preserve his own life. What Strickler at the beginning of TH values most is obviously his own life. This is a man who greatly fears death. I’m sure you see where I’m going with this.

It would have been a great conclusion to his character if he sacrificed himself in order to save Barbara and/or Jim. Also it would show that positive payoff to Jim choosing to trust Strickler. If Jim hypothetically didn’t trust Strickler and give him a chance to redeem himself, then hypothetically Strickler wouldn’t be able to sacrifice himself and thus Barbara would hypothetically die.

But who knows, Strickler could die in wizards ;)

Strickler dying would also leave room for Angor Rot surviving. And Angor Rot surviving if done right, could be used to further development with Jim and reinforce that he still has his heart despite sacrificing his humanity. It could also give a reason to Draal’s pointless death (further Jim’s and Angor’s developement).

Here’s what I propose could’ve been done with Angor Rot if he didn’t die: He can turn on Morgana and maybe even appear like he’s going to die. Jim is given a choice of whether or not to save Angor Rot, and maybe at this point or sometime previous in the finale reiterate that Angor killed Draal and Jim’s mad about it. Jim is half troll now, he’s different, angrier and less forgiving, maybe all of its getting to him and the audience is made to wonder if Jim might become more like Merlin (who was once like Jim but became crueler) or if he still has the heart that made him so great in the first place. He’s at a crossroads deciding which path he’s going to go down. And then Jim saves Angor. Have it mirror in some way when Jim spared Draal that first time. Have Angor react similarly, being confused about it and be like “but I killed your buddy, you should let me die as revenge”, and maybe have Jim say something about how that’s not how he does it.

And then, and now I’m just going off and doing that whole “what I would’ve done” thing, but like and then as positive payoff to the good action of choosing to save Angor what if there’s one last scene at the end and it’s in Merlin’s tomb. We see Draal’s stony corpse, and then before it is a cauldron like how we saw with Aaarrrgghh, and it’s all steaming. And Angor’s hand stirs it. Then there’s a wide shot and we see Angor Rot standing before Draal’s corpse as it starts to fade back to living stone. Then Draal opens his eyes. And then cut to black credits role.

But like all of this just my opinion man. My rambling overly critical opinion that would get me weird looks if I talked about it irl lol

#ask #trollhunters #tales of arcadia #walter strickler #meta #words? on my art blog??

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koukoupepia · 5 years

Text

i posted this on twitter but i might as well post this here too, somewhat aimless rambling about the destiny trio in kh3 and how it did them dirty under the cut. beware, its kind of long. kh3 spoilers, obviously

this isn't my thoughts on kh3 as a whole, its more of a kairi/destiny trio rant. this isnt entirely coherent either. god ok im sorry for all the kh3 talk but i dont know how long its going to take me to stop being pissed about what happened with kairi when for a long time they were building her up to be a character who Does Stuff now. she gets her keyblade in kh2! it was revealed she's be joining the 7 guardians in the ddd secret ending! she's talking to yen sid with riku at the end of 0.2! and when we were let down i saw people saying "well, what did you expect? it's square." like its not common knowledge kh doesnt have the best writing but i dont thing its unrealistic to have expected better than THAT. a cardboard cutout who got fridged for manpain. like kairi wasnt always the best character, certainly wasnt very well treated, but i cant believe that fucking kh2 treated her better than kh3 did.

anyway i keep thinking about how it makes me sad that the destiny trio is really not a trio, but also that their relationship progression... doesnt make a lot of sense. when info came out about kh3 having a theme of relationships changing, i wondered if they were actually going to be leaning away from the romance angle (still too much to ask for, but god.) i wondered if sora and kairi were going to realize they weren't as close as they used to be, since they have spent SO much time apart with no contact. and sora and riku continue to be very tight, because every game since kh2 has woven them together like the tightest knit sweater. i like the idea that sora & kairi have puppy crushes on each other in the early games - -in kh1 theyre very sweet. i wouldve been happy with canon sokai if their friendship continued to be as sweet as that. it's kind of interesting how in kh2, when sora sees sally and jack dancing, he imagines himself and kairi dancing together, but it's his current self and a younger kairi, because it's how he last remembers her. at that point he still feels closest to kairi and his relationship with riku is strained.

kh2 changes the dynamic when sora and riku finally reunite and they make up in a very healthy way (catch me crying about the scene on the dark margin, ive never seen two characters mend their relationship in a way that made me cry that much.) sora leaves the islands again, but the scene where kairi regifts the charm she made him after he gives it back is important because it shows that they both have faith that they'll continue to be friends no matter how far apart they are, and they'll find each other again. by Days you see the utter dedication that riku has to sora, he basically treats living a waking nightmare with the single goal to make sure sora wakes up safely as atonement. sora doesnt know the extent of this but you, the audience, do. the series REALLY emphasizes their relationship and their closeness and their dedication to each other, how they support each other in the ways they need. re:coded has the journal decide that riku was the best form to take to protect information about sora's journey. ddd shows riku as the only one fit to dive into sora's heart to wake him up. (and as of kh3 we know that dives to the heart exist in a place where the line between sleep and death is very thin -- aka, riku really risked his whole ass life AGAIN for a CHANCE to wake sora up.) when riku is told he passed the mark of mastery, sora is too busy being happy for him to feel sad for himself.

the relationship between riku and kairi.... is very minimal. but i think it's interesting that in kh1 when maleficent manipulates riku's feelings of jealousy to draw him further into the darkness, he thinks "oh god i have to get kairi. sora can't abandon her, too." i like that in kh2, kairi is able to tell that it's him immediately and she refuses to let him walk away without reuniting him without sora. in kh3 they dont interact at all, its weird as hell. it's like they dont know each other and kairi is sora's friend only.

i was disappointed at the minimal interaction between riku and sora in kh3, and i know that it's partially because this is the first game where their individual goals and motivations dont revolve around each other somehow (sora's goals in this game are all over the place in a bad way but that's a different post) but i was really hoping for a good chat and/or heartfelt moment between them like almost every other game has, since their relationship is probably the backbone of the series. one of the things that irked me about how they treated kairi is that sora actually thinks about riku on multiple occasions throughout the game and wants to talk to him, and the part where he thinks about how riku thought he had to push him away to protect him re: elsa was an "oh shit they really did go there" moment for me. on the other hand sora did not think of or mention kairi even once before their first conversation -- they didnt even have him wonder how she was doing, or wish he could call her, or have anything remind him of her. between the end of kh2 and ddd he and kairi dont interact or contact each other once, because nomura only cares to stick kairi where she can be a romantic prize for sora and doesnt treat her like theyre actually friends.

then the actual first scene they have together is so damn jarring. this was 24 hours into my playthrough of a game that took me ~30 hours to complete. theyre on their usual spot on the paopu tree, kairi points out that riku is by himself, which is not ooc for riku, but when they have her use that moment to pull out a paopu fruit and go "heysoraiwannabetogetherforeversoletssharethese" my reaction was "where did this come from suddenly and why is it happening so fast." theres NO buildup to this scene whatsoever. and then sora's attitude completely changes after that in a really weird way, like kairi is suddenly the Thing That Matters Most when he's never ever acted like one friend meant more to him than another. nomura if you revisited your damn games you'd know sora loves everyone intensely and indiscriminately. when everyone fucking "dies" in front of sora and he's following a light that he calls riku's name to and it turns out to be! surprise! it's kairi for some reason! when i think about it, it hurts a little but i don't know why. i like that she did actually find a way to protect him, but i dont like that it had to be this weird deus ex machina that has no explanation (is this part of kairi's unexplained powers? is this just a plot device?? who knows.)

dont FUCKING get me started on xemnas kidnapping kairi in front of sora and xehanort killing her in front of him in a scene that reduced my enjoyment of the game by a solid 25% because it's BULLSHIT and FRIDGING WOMEN FOR MANPAIN IS SO ORIGINAL AND NOT CHOCK-FULL O' MISOGYNY.

sora saying kairi's the reason for his whole journey is blatantly not true (ATTENTION NOMURA REVISIT YOUR FUCKING WRITING) so he should go look for her alone while riku is standing right fucking there and riku just. lets him go??? like kairi's not his friend too??? what the fuck??? the last scene where it pans up the paopu tree to kairi and sora holding hands and sora fades away while everyone else, including riku, is just having a good time???? what the fuck???? you know sora /would/ drop everything to go save a friend but i dont like that suddenly he acts like kairi outweighs every other person in his life simply because theres some romantic interest there. with someone he was never written to have an actual relationship with. in a game about friendship. and like, shipping aside, sora and riku have one of the most SOLID friendships ive seen in any media and riku just gets ejected out of his own damn trio because of a hamfisted romance AAAAA

in conclusion: Not My Destiny Trio

#kh3 spoilers #kingdom hurts #am i done yelling about kh3? no. am i done being mad about kairi? also no

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asiifisms · 6 years

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hc + love

send me ‘ hc ‘ + a word and i’ll write a headcanon about it regarding my character. || Accepting

(To keep this short, I’m only gonna be writing on romantic love, this time around, because platonic and familial would be a novella all on their own.)

Early on, he wasn’t looking for love. He was experimenting in high school, like most people were; trying to figure out what sort of things and people he was into, where his boundaries are, all that good stuff, so it’s not really the right time for him to settle into anything lasting. Maybe some people can settle happily in with their high school sweetheart, but that wasn’t really for him. When he graduated and joined the army, it was less about finding love, and more about having fun. Lots of short flings, some of whom he’d become casual friends with, others who he couldn’t for the life of him remember, if he tried. He was just out living life, enjoying himself, as young people are wont to do. Here, he wasn’t looking for anything long-term, but, if he were to find something that he was happy with, and someone he genuinely cared for, he wouldn’t say no to it. It just wasn’t something he wanted to bother stressing over.

When Xehanort becomes a thing he has to deal with, that takes over his free time pretty quickly. Originally, he just has less time to do things, in between keeping up with work and secretly meeting with a very powerful and secretive old sorcerer; Then he was adjusting to losing a chunk of his face, and not long after that, he got himself possessed, so. Not a lot of chances for romance there.

During his time spent as a Vessel, before and during both incarnations of Organisation XIII, he doesn’t care about relationships. Full-stop. Romantic, platonic, familial - it’s all a waste of time for him. (I have no idea how Xixi and Junior wormed their way into his malformed heart. I honestly have no idea.) He doesn’t need friends, he doesn’t need confidants, and he sure as hell doesn’t need nor want anything beyond that. He doesn’t need people worrying about where he is or what he’s doing. He doesn’t need people getting in his way. His only focus is on keeping things on track, getting his revenge, and getting himself and Xehanort alike offed in the Second Keyblade War. Honestly, I don’t even know if Xig’s capable of feeling romantic attraction, or any compassion/attachment for anyone who isn’t A) someone who was desperately important to Braig, or B) someone who reminds him of those people, and is useful to him in some practical way. Case in point, one of my ship partners is Rodi’s Zelos, and the poor boy had been flirting with Xig for ages, and got shot down, every single time. The most Xig saw in him was a fun drinking buddy, and somebody who had ample political, religious, and magical power, who could be very useful to his plans. Hell, at one point, Xig even seriously considered bringing Zelos to Xehanort, to be made into a Vessel - need the full Thirteen to set the war off, and all. Then we did a bit post-series, after he’s Braig again, where he meets Zelos for drinks, and I’ve never had a muse go ‘oh NO, he’s hot’ so quickly. It was like this dummy just ran head-first into a solid wall of heart-eyes. Later down their timeline, those two are happily married, and Braig has on at least one occasion fought a god to keep Zelos safe, so. There’s a big discrepancy between Xig and Braig irt: love. I’m still quietly perplexed about the niece and nephew, but, hey. When as Xigbar ever been easy to understand?

Post-Series/Vesselhood, he’s a lot more settled- More subdued- Than he was before it all. He’s more closed off, though you wouldn’t be able to tell, just by looking at him. He’ll still talk to people and make jokes and be his usual pest self, but he’s Not Interested in meeting new people, full-stop. He has his inner circle, and that’s enough for him. I mean, he might accept someone new, but it’ll take a lot longer than before. Trust issues, and all. This means that he’s not going to parties like he used to, not sleeping around like he used to. The only sort of romantic and/or sexual relationship he’d be in at this point would most likely be with someone he knew from before the whole Xehanort thing, or otherwise knew for a long time and is comfortable with. If it’s not someone he can relax around, it’s just not happening. As well, any relationship he’s in at this point is going to be a long-lasting one - If you managed to stick with him long enough that you’ve gotten to that point, though, you’re most likely already in it for the long run. And, you’d better be prepared: he will do anything for you. Literally anything. He’s a loyal doofus with minimal moral hang-ups, so, what can you expect? (You can expect periods of cuddliness and periods of needing a bit of space, that’s what. Be gentle with this boy Nomura and I have put him through so much.)

#;reloading (ｏｕｔ　ｏｆ　ｃｈａｒａｃｔｅｒ)#;spare rounds (ａｓｋ)#anonymous #;member database (ｈｅａｄｃａｎｏｎｓ)

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yournewhappyplace · 7 years

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Full PlayLew: Kingdom Hearts

hey so it’s been a while since i really wrote anything about games but recently i bought the Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 + 2.5 - ReMix - collection (not to be confused with Kingdom Hearts 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue you silly goose) which is a collection of Kingdom Hearts, Re:Chain of Memories, Kingdom Hearts II, Birth by Sleep and full cinematics for the two early DS games...that’s a lot of Kingdom Hearts...and because i only owned my first PS2 in 2013, i missed out on the whole Kingdom Hearts shabang! so let's document my first playthrough of the game that started it all; Kingdom Hearts! depending, i might write up a post about all the games as i play them and tell you all what a Birth by Sleep is but for now, let’s keep this Simple And Clean and start with the first game

(warning: spoilers for the game and full on rambling)

So there's a reason why I wanted to get into Kingdom Hearts, asides from Millenial Peer Pressure to understand what Simple And Clean means, cus there's one cutscene I saw from the second game where Goofy gets smacked with a rock and Mickey Mouse in a super hot topic zipped jacket gets really upset and the entire scene is both super melodramatic and absurd at the same time and I REALLY liked that. I really liked the idea of this crossover series from the two biggest giants of it's day, just going 100% extra and hopefully taking its premise to the next level...and it does.

Like, one of the first things you do in this game is meet Wakka from FFX and smack him with a wooden sword and there's a cutscene not further on where Aerith is having a serious discussion with Goofy and Donald Duck about a metaphorical darkness and...it's great. i'm going on about this aspect so much immediately because it's my favourite part of the game. the charm and the balance of touching tribute and ridiculous revelations that Kingdom Hearts achieves with merging its properties.

The actual game itself isn't the showstopper here but it's still worth talking about. It plays like a third person action game where you have all the bearings of it's Final Fantasy brethren with random encounters, leveling up, a party system and summons but the game doesn't load in and out of battles, you just get straight into a brawl on the map and there's no turn based battle system. I gotta give the team credit for wanting to make a different combat system than a lot of similar JRPGs at the time because it really helps give the series its own identity from minute one, with both the system and the keyblade weapon that you use to melee and cast spells with. At first it can be a bit jarring and hard to play. Sometimes the camera feels too tight behind Sora (the dude you play as) and processing the 3D space between you and the enemy can be a bit difficult to judge. Also the tightness means you'll get hit by off-screen attacks quite a bit more than you'd feel fair but once you start to get the hang of fighting through tough battles and slowly gain new spells, like a self heal, and a fuckin roll (!), it starts to click and becomes an enjoyable fighting system. The enemy variety in the game could've been upped to keep it more interesting in the later stages but it feels satisying to blow enemies UP with your keyblade (god I love the keyblade's design so much)...and it's hard not to admit the satisfaction of the one-on-one rival battles. When you're up against a dude the same size as you and he's got a melee weapon as well...it is Fire 100 Turn Up The BBQ.

It's a shame that those type of boss fights only really appear near the end because, for the first half at least, the boss fights aren't too great. The worst boss fights that show up in this game are the ones where the hurtbox of the enemy is on a head or a high part of their body, so as Sora you have to jump up and do an air combo at their hurtbox, hoping the hits connect or that you get your full combo out or the enemy doesn't move as you're jumping or the enemy just doesn't knock you out of it...but most of the time that stuff happens and it makes those boss fights some of the most annoying and unsatisfying. There's one boss fight in perticular, at the end of the Wonderland level, which is pretty much the first proper level of the game, that is really tall and his hurtbox is his main body which is propped up on two huge legs and trying to HIT IT is so tough. If you're on the ground, you have to make sure to jump and start attacking at the height of your combo otherwise you'll hit his legs which means that your attacks will literally bounce off him and you'll be flung to the ground. Even when I did get hits in on his body from jumping off the ground, i'd usually only get one or two hits in before I just hit the ground again and...that's not fun! There's a table in the middle of the arena you can climb onto that gives you a platform to jump off and smack him with but ONE that's just as annoying. having to keep climbing up this table to get three or four hits in, fall to the ground and repeat is bad and TWO the table is destructible by the boss! So he can just destroy it and make it even more annoying! Also he takes reduced damage from the 1 out of 2 spells you have at that time. Ahhhhh!!! And whilst no other boss comes close to being as annoying as that, there's still other bosses that use some of it's Anti-Fun Kata Techniques and they can be pretty unsatisfying.

Also some of the worlds in this game can be hit or miss. In Kingdom Hearts you travel between levels that, at most times, are Disney themed worlds like Neverland, Pumpkin Town and Olympus Collesium. Some of them are literally just 3 or 4 rooms, some are bland and some are downright barbaric like the Tarzan level that makes you travel up and down the level several times to trigger new cutscenes or events to progress the story and it can get really frustrating ESPECIALLY when the game doesn't make it all that clear where you need to go or what you have to do, so you're just hopelessly running around, entering in and out of buildings hoping something changes!

So okay, i've talked about what didn't work in this game BUT worry not, positive vibes are coming in the form of my early point; presentation! The game is a Disney and Final Fantasy crossover and the game's use of those licenses helps prop the game up massively. The Wonderland level, whilst not the most interesting level design wise, is propped up massively by just the very idea of it being Wonderland and everything that comes with it. Fun, colourful imagery! Gimmicks involving being huge and small! Twisted geometry spaces! A purple talking cat! Like the way they use their licenses to create these distinct, colourful, imaginative worlds with a diverse set of characters feels like cheating since they're using already existing brands but it's no lie that this all helps create a game that really feels like you're playing on this large Disneyland rollercoaster that shows you the world! And you're not just going by saying “I recognise the thing! I clapped!”, you're fuckinnnng in the thing! You're interacting with all the things! Sometimes you even kill the things and just twisting the properties onto their heads! Remember that time Clayton from Tarzan got fucking killed by a chameleon crushing him?? Yeah! Me too! It's rad!! Remember that time Hades from Hercules hired Cloud to kill you?? Yeah!! That's what makes this whole thing feel fun and worthwhile and not a simple nostalgia grab or whatever. Cus Disney gave them full license to do whatever they wanted and guess what W E D O I T said Nomura.

I also love how in certain worlds, aesthetics or even entire systems will change to match it. Like how in Little Mermaid level, you play it completely underwater. They could have made you stick to the bottom of the seabed and play it like a normal level or put you in a sub or whatever but they didn't, instead they change Sora and your parties models so you're a mermaid and you have to instead move using square and circle to go up and down through the water. That's cool! In the Neverland level, you get to fly like Peter Pan through the level and fighting flying pirate ships in the sky as you float is wonderful! And the part at the end where you go to a city level and you fly around the equivalent of Big Ben as the music swells up is one of my highlights from the game...cus it just FELT good in my hands. Even the smaller changes like Sora getting a new, gothed up, halloween costume for the Nightmare Before Christmas level is a cute touch! In a perfect world all of these changes would have happened for the majority of levels but alas.

There's also this Winnie the Pooh world that's probably my favourite. At a part of the game, you get a book that you can access and as you open the book, you find yourself walking around 100 Acre Woods and meeting Winnie the Pooh but the rest of the pages are missing. So as you go through levels, you find these pages for the book and for each page you get a new level of 100 Acre Woods that feels like a light, adventure where you're hanging around with Winnie the Pooh and friends. There's no combat in the levels, it's all just mini-games and talking with Pooh and the cast...and it's wonderful. Not only does it fit the tone of the license, cheerful fun, but the feel of the level from the writing and the adventures just feels...Pooh-like. And then when you get that last page and you get Pooh and all his friends together and they bid you farewell and the book closes to show a picture of Sora holding hands with Pooh...i got emotional man...i really did.

And then there's the other side of the spectrum, from fighting off tears over a really well done, careful use of it's properties to grinning like mad with tears of laughter at the ridiculous use of its property. Okay so like the end of the game is, the greatest. After you defeat the main bad guy (he was a scientist trying to use darkness for power blah blah), you get this scene where Sora and friends find the door to the Kingdom Hearts! The source of all hearts! And in it there are Heartless (the enemies) coming out of it so you have to go and close the door BUT doing it on your own isn't enough so you have to use the help of your friend Riku (he was a friend-turned-rival-turned-back to friend by the end)to shut it BUT! He has to shut it from the other side of the door which means locking himself in with the Heartless and the darkness within it. So he's basically gonna get fucked. And Sora realises this and after refusing to shut the door at Riku's request, he obliges and in an emotional moment goes to push it shut….BUT SHUT THE FUCK UP, DONALD DUCK PEEKS IN THE DOOR AND GOES “WUHHHHH” AND YOU NOTICE MICKEY MOUSE'S ICONIC EARS AND HEAD CAST A SHADOW AND IN AN EXTREMELY MICKEY MOUSE VOICE GOES “HEY SORA!” AND IT'S LIKE FUCKING AWESOME. FUCKING GREAT. EMOTIONAL MOMENT -DEFUSED-, PREY SLAUGHTERED CUS MICKEY MOUSE TALKED. I couldn't stop laughing the whole time and then mickey mouse shuts the door and all is saved. BUT THEN because of complications, Sora has to leave behind his childhood sweeheart Kairi that he saved to go back to her world whilst Sora gets left behind in wherever he is and then Simple And Clean, the main theme, just blast with its cheesy super early 2000's musical sheen as a closing FMV plays where Kairi is crying about missing Sora and everyone is all happy cus they get to see their friends again and it's so...innocent and perhaps naive at what it's doing but it fills me life man. I was singing the lyrics to this RnB track as I thought about the events that just occurred and seeing Pinnochio turn into a real boy and Cloud meet back up with Aerith and maaaaaaaan

That's why I really like Kingdom Hearts. The gameplay is generally fun despite some dips, there's some rewarding treasure hunts despite the level design being bland….on a purely Game perspective, it isn't that special and is probably worse than other 3D platformers of it's time BUT where it really shines and where the charm gets to me in this game is just how much it celebrates and lets you engage with it's crossover. Whether it's trying to evoke a feeling of sadness at a childhood gone by or drama through laughable scenarios involving Disney and Square Enix characters...it's just got real charm and i'm so happy this game exists. I'm even happier that it was successful enough to spawn an entire franchise that still has young kids and grown adults getting hyped for it's next installment. It's a weird kinda magic that I don't think any other game or series has fully replicated. Will the charm wear off I play through more and more of these games? I dunno, we'll see...but for now, Kingdom Hearts, thank you for being really Goofy.

P.S: Simple And Clean is so good

#long post

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nadziejastar · 5 years

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Terra: Oy, sometimes you are such a girl.

Aqua: Hey, what do you mean, “sometimes”?

Hmm, interesting question. Unfortunately Isa didn’t get a whole lot of screen time. The only thing I can point to is that he probably wouldn’t have been written as such a sarcastic character. Female characters tend to be written as demure and polite, with few exceptions (like Larxene). It wouldn’t have been necessary to write Isa any differently if he were female. But it seems like many creators have narrow views of women and what kinds of personalities they can have. It’s not just KH, though.

Xigbar: Heh heh. Girls, am I right? Life's biggest mystery. One thing that IS clear, though, is that no girl wants to be with a guy weaker than she is.

I think if Isa had been a female character, the biggest difference would likely have been his relationship with Lea. It would have felt more shallow and underdeveloped without their banter. On the other hand, the intimacy of their relationship would be seen as more socially acceptable. Personality-wise, he’d probably be similar to Aqua. On the quiet side, but empathetic and mature beyond his years. Of course, Aqua seemed sad that she couldn’t have the same type of closeness with her male companions that they had among themselves. And this is exactly what I mean.

Roxas: You mean...real people are more complex than us?

Axel: Well, sure! Especially if they're real and female. That's like a double dose of complicated.

If writing intimate male relationships feels more natural to some creators, I’d prefer if they just wrote that instead of male/female relationships that feel forced. I think Axel is probably a mouthpiece for how Nomura himself feels about women. They’re just hard to relate to. I mean, I understand how people come to think like that. It’s something I’ve personally heard before in real life. And Japan is just a whole different ballpark when it comes to social roles for girls and boys. It’s kinda sad, though. Still, I don’t mind if fictional characters like Axel think this way, as long as the author is mindful about it. It made Axel seem more flawed and human. And at least he was honest.

The room was completely wrecked—draperies shredded and walls deeply scored—but he saw no Beast inside. And all the way in the back, on a small table gleaming in the moonlight from the window, a glass vessel covered a single red flower—a rose?

But yes, the original idea was that Isa was a rather feminine boy. I liked this. It gave him a unique sense of identity, and it made Axel a lot more interesting. One of Saïx’s weapons is named after a flower that has a rich history in Japan. I really liked the parallel between this particular flower and the Beast’s rose. It’s actually sad how much more heartfelt and sincere the subtle relationship Isa and Lea had, compared to the ones between the male and female characters.

Roxas looked again at the rose beneath the glass, safe in the back of the chambers. It was somehow sparkling, unlike anything else here.

“Precisely. That is no ordinary rose. The room is in tatters save for one corner—because to him, at least, it is more precious than all the castle’s riches.”

A Queen of the Night flower can take a year to bloom and only blooms over a single night, usually under a full moon. Because of this, it is used to describe someone who has an impressive but very brief moment of glory, like a “flash in the pan”. It’s just as delicate as the Beast’s rose, which sits in the moonlight of the Beast’s room. It also dies as soon as it is picked, making it very rare and very expensive.

Cogsworth: Ah, but that is not all… Over time, caring for that rose has become a cherished part of the master’s daily life.

Mrs. Potts: It’s as though all his hopes and dreams are tied to that single bloom...

The Japanese people have great empathy for this type of fragile beauty, as they have given this plant the name Gekka-Bijin, which evokes the image of a beautiful woman seen by moonlight, or gazing at the moon. Axel’s memories of the past were what he couldn’t bear to lose. His whole relationship with Isa was a flash in the pan. It was actually rather poetic how Isa was made out to be this ephemeral beauty who was only able to shine for such a brief time, then completely vanished out of Axel’s life, leaving only the memories behind.

Axel: As long as we remember each other, we’ll never be apart. Got it memorized?

Roxas: Ha ha, wow, Axel. That sounded ridiculous.

Axel: What? I thought it was pretty deep.

IMO, this single scene was a lot more romantic than anything between Sora and Kairi. I’m pretty indifferent to Sora/Kairi. It’s not like I hate it or anything. It’s just that we’re always TOLD that Sora has these deep feelings for Kairi. But we rarely ever see it through their interactions. They don’t have a lot of chemistry, in other words. In this scene, the audience isn’t TOLD that Axel has deep feelings for Isa. In fact, we are NEVER explicitly told this. It wasn’t necessary. I could tell, based on the way he spoke, that Axel had profound feelings for Isa.

Roxas: That still doesn't explain what love is... Is love fighting to protect what's most important to you? Where does its power come from?

Queen of the Night is part of Prestige Gear. This is Strength in Luxord’s card. The Strength card speaks to the human spirit’s ability to overcome any obstacle. It represents inner strength, personal power, strong will and determination. The Two of Cups represents deep connections and partnerships, based on shared values, compassion, and unconditional love. Axel was always fighting so hard to protect those memories, keeping them behind glass, so to speak. But he never, ever talked about them to anyone. If Isa had been female, I highly doubt Axel’s nostalgia would have been written with such sincerity.

#kh isa #kh axel #kh leaisa

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