I’d
pretty much given up on writing as laziness and self-doubt got the better of
me, but FFVII is one topic
I want to put my thoughts out on regardless.
So
Square Enix has announced they're remaking FFVII. It’s a move that has me excited
and worried. Tetsuya Nomura is taking on directing duties. He was the character
designer on the original FFVII and though he had his role in the success of
FFVII his subsequent rise through the ranks often seems responsible for imbuing
the series with many of the traits that have turned me off the series.
Final
Fantasy VII is a weird game. It’s not the first description people go to when
thinking about such a seminal JRPG, but it’s a game that’s full of odd, quirky
moments.
It
can also be somewhat of a mirror to the player’s own interpretations. Despite the reams of text, the baby steps
into deeper videogame storytelling, crass localization and lack of voice acting
mean’s one can’t help project a certain amount into the characters.
I certainly
feel that way when I see how others perceive the characters. Subsequent FFVII spin-offs never captured the
right tone. It suddenly seemed like FFVII was a game that was dark and broody.
Advent Children came out and seemed aimed at the My Chemical Romance
generation. It didn’t tally with the game I knew at all.
It 's hard to describe Cloud, because his characterisation is broad,
inconsistent, both perhaps because of the original writing of him and by
accident of the localization. But one thing he’s not is a brooding teenage emo.
His hair’s spiky because he’s a fucking mess, not because he spent hours
styling it that way. He’s not deliberately aloof; he’s just a bit awkward and
not very good at talking to people. (Okay, maybe I’m just projecting myself
into the character there)
It
led me to question if I was I just reading things wrong. Was I imagining depth that
wasn’t there? Was I just projecting traits onto the characters that seemed more
appealing to me? It’s a question I’m still not entirely sure of the answer to,
but I’m certain through subsequent playthroughs that its whole style is worlds
apart from its spin-offs and Square Enix’s style now.
It
tends to be reduced to its bigger moments, and while there are huge emotional
moments and great set-pieces. The smaller moments, the little bits of
interaction between the characters are what really held things together. You feel
like you’re on a journey with people you care about.
A lot
of these smaller moments are what resonate so many years later, but a lot of
them might not be so essential to the overall plot. Some things that will inevitably get cut and
changed will hurt, even though removing them may be a good decision.
So a
remake raises the question of what they should change, what they should keep. Being
a fanboy means one is too rigid when it comes to different interpretations of a
story. People will be unhappy regardless, but will this be because of fear of
change itself or because of the changes not being very good?
Obviously
there’s going to be outrage when the game fails to revert the world to a
blissful idealized child state before we knew the abyss (much like meteor)
loomed ever closer But I can already see
there being huge “Well the fans just didn’t like it because it was different”
“No we didn’t like it because it was shit” debates.
But
it does present them with opportunities to improve things. I’d hope the
material system is still very similar (it would have to be in some sense
because it’s a system that’s very much tied to the world) but they could do
away with random battles.
They
could also bring clarity to certain parts of the story. Some major plots points
are made confusing by the translation. Others are hidden away in optional
scenes where the importance isn’t really hammered home. They can also explain
what the fuck Cait Sith actually is!
But I
hope they don’t lose sight of what made the original so successful. They need
to be brave enough reinvent things but still understand the impact of what
they’re changing. They have to keep a very delicate balance between the old and
the new.