Patreon Letter: 19th May 2019

Hey folks, Jackson here with my Pateron Letter! There was none last weekend so mine's this weekend, Em's will be soon. But there was never any doubt what the topic would be: let's talk a little about Final Fantasy 7. 

Heads up: I'm going to spoil FF7 slightly, I'll be talking around things but this letter is about why FF7 is more than its one line meme plot point and I need to get into specifics a little. If you have not played the game then please just shut this letter and go play the original on switch or something, it's very good.

So! Final Fantasy 7 Remake is back, and it still looks bad. Well, to me. It looks largely the same as it did back in 2015, obviously a lot of work has been done but the aesthetic principles and action gameplay look basically the same in the broad strokes. It is the game that we knew was coming then, just it's almost ready to start its actual marketing push to release. All of the details that were true then: it's a planned trilogy of games, it's still an action RPG with nebulous ATB systems to bring over that FF7 feel, it's exactly what we thought!

Which is to say, not what I want. Is it possible that there exists a FF7 Remake that I do want? Probably not but this is still further than I would like. I want a game that preserves the wonderful sense of strange aesthetics in the world, the weird font choices, the ridiculous architecture, the sense that this is a fantasy world ripped by force into modernity at the cost of the planet, and you see it in every part of the culture. The world does not make sense. And maybe the Remake will still represent this but everything we've seen of Midgar just makes it look generically industrial, which as they say, this is not it chief.  But it is easy for me to point and judge, because it is a tough question, how do you preserve what is special about Final Fantasy 7 in a world where everyone, including Square Enix, has forgotten. 

There has been a lot of discussion about spoilers this week, and should we talk about The Big Spoiler in the game. You know the one. Some take the side that no, shut the fuck up, this is part of the culture and get over yourself. Some take the side that surely if this is a new adaptation of this story we should have some restraint. People who read the books were pretty good at preserving the Red Wedding shock for the show, etc etc. It's a discussion that is pretty academically interesting, I tend to side with the fact that it's really not hard to tag your spoilers so there's no reason to be a dick, but I do think that FF7 is a particularly unique case when it comes to this topic. Mainly because if you were to sit me down and demand I tell you the worst, single line, "Bruce Willis is a Ghost" spoiler for the game then it would have absolutely nothing to do with Aerith. 

I remmeber playing Final Fantasy 7 for the first time knowing only that everyone thought Cloud and Sephiroth were extremely cool, and y'know, Aerith fuckin' dies. And the gravity of that centre of the game's reputation was so strong that my reaction to the meat of the second disc, to everything with Cloud's past, to the section where you play as Tifa, the nature of the Reunion and even how Sephiroth isn't cool and composed in the slightest, he's a blubbering wreck the entire game. Nobody ever mentions any of this and it's the heart of the game. So the entire "should we talk about Aerith" discussion is missing the point. I think if you come across a rare person who doesn't know and wants to enjoy FF7 then it'd be rude to go out of your way to bring it up until they've played it, but at the same time it's not The Thing. It was never The Thing. It happens in the first disc.

Which is why it's so frustrating that it's inevitable that the remake will muddy the waters further rather than remind everyone of the truth of FF7. The world design in the trailers has none of the precise thematic grounding that defined every scene of the original game. Cloud has the typical cool guy voice of his Kingdom Hearts/Advent Children appearances. This is not a Cloud who shall end up moseying. I would love to be wrong, but the worst part of it all, is that we are not going to find out when the game comes out. If the game is going to be in three parts then Aerith won't die until probably the midpoint of the second game, which means the first game is going to be entirely before the narrative turns! 

Imagine playing the first few hours of Raiden's Metal Gear Solid 2 campaign and then the game ends at, the harrier battle on the bridge. That's the gift that square enix is going to give us with the first remake game and it's gonna lead to a discourse for the ages.

Anyway. I am still, despite this very negative letter, nominally excited for the game. In the sense of I do still care about Cloud, I care a lot, and I will be playing this. I hope it isn't Star Trek Discovery Season 2 levels of bad. I expect all the complaints I'm laying out here to mostly hold water but I would like, within that, for it to be good and thoughtful. I think there is space for it to be so. I am not ashamed to admit that I like Final Fantasy enough that I will play it anyway, I've been dealing with Square Enix's bullshit for years and I'm not about to stop now.

Alright that's enough, see you all later, let's mosey.