Genesis Sucks

I'm warning you, Shut up!

Oh it's time. I'm sure this is the very same dialogue that every old school fan of Final Fantasy VII Crisis Core has had at one point or another, but I was lucky enough to be spared that pain. Instead it took playing 'Reunion' for me to be introduced to quite possible the worst Final Fantasy antagonist the world has ever seen and I just need to rant about his awfulness for my own well being if nothing else. And yes, it expands far beyond the quality of his dub- although it should be stated that the Reunion Dub was especially poorly handled and crappy. (I suspect Square put literally no effort behind it's production.) Genesis' terribleness transcends translations and dubs- it's seeped right into the bone. And for a franchise typically resplendent for it's angst and melodrama- who'd have thought this one side-game antagonist would stand head and shoulder above the rest as the king of 2000's angst cringe?

First some backstory. Genesis is to Final Fantasy 7 what any sub standard fan fiction's 'super cool OC bad guy' is to those stories- trite and heavily dependent on the source material to have any ounce of weight. Genesis is a copy of the original games core antagonist Sephiroth in all the ways that matter, general looks, narrative significance and even his inexplicable biblically-intertwined naming conventions. (At least his name is better than 'Angeal') The only distinctions of note being that Genesis communicates primarily in poetic verses of an in-universe fantasy story he seems to hold as 'prophetic', and Genesis seems to display some vague desire to want to save the world where Sephiroth wants to destroy it. But Genesis is conveyed so poorly in his desires and intentions that it's impossible to devise what he wants to save the world from nor how he intends to do it- he has no substance.

Now of course, Genesis is probably best known for the way that he is actually an insert from a Jpop star known as Gackt who was a Final Fantasy fan who wrote music for Dirge of Cerberus. Genesis was based on the likeness of Gackt, and the singer actually played Genesis in Crisis Core. Now I don't know Gackt from Adam, but I do genuinely feel bad for the amount of hate delivered to a character so intrinsically linked to a real life person in appearance and performance. Therefore I want to make clear that my problems with Genesis start and end with the fictional character, I hold nothing against the man behind him and honestly- I blame the writing style of the team rather than the people behind the pixels. Just as I don't blame any of the Reunion cast for that pigs-ear of a dub. This is corporate baby, all the way up! 

Much has been said in defence of Genesis' mannerisms, particularly how he employs Loveless and his many endless quotes of the book as a coping mechanism to come to terms with his revelations about his own nature. Well let me just stick a knife through that cope because I'm going to be honest- that doesn't amount to much of anything either. The amount of weight that Crisis Core expects to stand behind the revelation of "I'm actually not a human, I'm a monster that looks like a human!" is shameful, as though that plot point means anything in a world where the label of 'monster' is as esoteric as the fantastical concept itself. If you expect me to believe that Genesis is shaken to the core by the revelation that he shares genetics with Monsters, you have to spend time establishing what that even means at a basic level! Does that mean he lacks human emotions? Because other similar effected Soldiers seems able to access their full range of emotions. Does it mean that Genesis is wracked with an inexplicable hunger to hunt and hurt humans? Nah, he's more driven by a desire to preserve his own life. All it really means is that his body is constantly decaying, which would be strong enough motivation if that bore any relevance in the man's characterisation!

The urgency that any 'man with a time limit' story demands is lost in the plodding, endless drone that is Genesis' laborious dialogue tendencies- monotonous and circular, unresolved and endlessly quoting. But quoting what exactly? "The wind sails over the water's surface. Quietly, but surely" That one is apparently so impactful it earns the prototypical 'You just don't understand the beauty of those words' refrain, despite the phrase being a painfully unlyrical characterisation of determination. That is the level of the 'depth' you can expect to hear crooned out by this absolute headache machine in lieu of actual character work or introspection. Just surface level poetry that Genesis conflates with some secretive high art that only he appreciates. It almost wraps around to 'Sonic Forces: Infinite' levels of self aware mock-commentary, but just as with that villain- there's a sad earnestness underneath it all.

"My soul, corrupted by vengeance, hath endured torment, to find the end of my journey, in my own salvation and your eternal slumber." We are blessed enough to hear this one twice, once on his own and then in front of the cast- which makes me think he was actually rehearsing this absolute zinger, hoping for maximum effect, no doubt. And it's a decent, if predictably barefaced, passage for literally anyone else other than Genesis. Any ideals of vengeance he has are fleeting and short lived and his end goal is some vague gift of 'power' from some vaguely addressed 'goddess' figure he rambles on about endlessly and self preservation- to characterise his own journey as 'corrupted by vengeance' and tied to completion of 'your eternal slumber' is to utterly mischaracterise Genesis. It makes the man sound like he doesn't even know why he does the things he does, which clashes heavily with his infuriating presentation as some 'enlightened connoisseur of transcendent art.'

And the classic- the line that everyone who has played Crisis Core has heard so much they could inscribe it in their sleep. Genesis' actual catchphrase: "Even if the morrow is barren of promises, nothing can forestall my return". It's almost humours how actually depth-less that is, and yet he coins it like the most profound sentiment the world has ever conjured. The most barefaced, blatant stanza plausible and it's the one Genesis repeats over and over to no-one and everyone. At the very end of the game he offers a new addition to it as his own creation of the long lost act 5 of Loveless. "Even if the morrow is barren of promises, nothing shall forestall my return, to become the dew that quenches the land, to spare the sands, the seas, the skies, I offer thee this silent sacrifice" More affectations. Pretty sounding. But substanceless. Which is fine for a poem, brilliant for a love letter. But for the final act of a epic story? Especially considering the fact that the original quote comes from act 3, before the speaker departs for a duel- why would the line be repeated for act 5? Unless its meant as a peaceful reprise to signify the end of life, as represented by the becoming of the forces that make up the land. Yes, that would be fitting, and a very sweet sentiment for Genesis to coin at the end of his- wait a minute, Genesis doesn't even die! He's probably going to be in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth! So WHAT THE HELL IS THE POINT OF THIS LINE!

I'm not so bitter against the concept of poetry. I quite like poetry and the significance it can hold when well handled. Nothing about Crisis Core is cleverly handled, cleverly written or clever in any abstract sense. Characters are blunt and obsessively one-note and consequently aggressively bland in that quirky fan fiction-esque way. If one character's core value is about maintaining honour, you best bet that one character trait is his entire personality! If another character likes poetry- oh that is going to be his all and everything! Nevermind what the poetry actually says! Who cares how any of it relates to his character or reflects to the situation around him? That's not the point! The point is having him read poetry because that makes him mysterious and brooding and hot! Do you know what else that makes him? Unbelievably and unforgettably boring! Genesis may fancy himself as some enlightened poet with a gentle soul, Angeal may be a rigid honour obsessed freak, Tseng may be a guy who was paid to read out every line like a first generation TTS drone, but I refuse to subscribe to any of their pitiful standards of being. I'm my own man. Me? Gongaga. 

Tetsuya's Nomura's dream stretches on

 Somebody stop this man

Oh, So Final Fantasy VII is £70 now? Huh...

 This is fine >Starts hyperventilating<

There's this belief going around the video game industry, one fuelled by wanton and targeted cognitive dissonance. It's the kind of thing that makes sense when it's told in those first fleeting seconds after it's first described to you, as certain figures insist on doing again and again, but which falls utterly apart upon the slightest further scrutiny. I'm talking about the idea that the video game industry hasn't evolved with inflation. Yes, gaming companies, first Sony and recently Square, love to remind people that games have been going for £60 since the nineties, and though they've only become more expensive to make, they arrive at our shelves with the same price tag. It sort of makes sense, but it's woefully, intentionally, misleading. Because whilst the base price of games has remained frozen for the longest time, it's done so at a price point which is entirely reasonable (In fact, a lot of times it's a bit too generous) and doesn't have any of these companies hard-up to run their day-to-days. But the industry has evolved considerably in other ways.

In the age of Microtransactions, booster packs, battle passes and now NFTs, who are the gaming industries' elite fooling when they tell us they're making no more on games then the did thirty years ago? Rockstar makes over a billion each year on the back of one game, which they released eight years ago. That's not because of the price tag on the box, let me tell you; it's the Microtransactions they've been pushing for all that time. And they aren't outliers, almost every AAA game has it's ingame store nowdays, to the point where it's more notable when a game doesn't. (Remember how Jedi Fallen Order scored headlines simply because there was no microtransactions? Shouldn't that tell you something?) Heck, as a whole the gaming industry recently crossed the threshold of becoming the most profitable entertainment industry in-the-world. All of this is to say plainly; there is no sensible reason on this green earth why the premium price of new games should go up £10. If anyone tries to tell you otherwise, scrutinise their stake in the situation until the obvious bias unravels itself.

Thus it's with that utter disdain, edging on loathing, that I look upon Final Fantasy 7 Remake's £70 price-tag. More expensive then the original game ever was, to be clear. This matches alongside a release exclusive to the Epic Games Store, a platform which only last month got around to implementing a cart, (A FREAKIN' CART) essentially proposing a plan where customers pay extra for a worse experience. The cherry on the cake of course being the fact that this release is a bloody PC port for a game that's over 2 years old, because Square are just making a power play for how much they can bend people over before they refuse to bend anymore. This isn't a one off. Forspoken, that strange Isekai game which is undergoing marketing ramp-up all over Youtube despite the fact the game isn't due till May, is also set to land with £70 on the price tag. Square are shooting for this, and if they are rewarded for this utter transgression on consumer rights it will pick up steam, and it won't be long before the entire AAA industry is charging a sixth of a brand new console for the privilege of buying software. Tell me I'm not the only one who finds that utterly repugnant!

I've said before that Sony are all aboard this train, and I'm not joking. For their first party titles, Sony has reached for £70 across the board in this next gen tax. Something which would have blown up a lot more if people could even buy up the consoles in order to see that affront to justice in the first place. But considering Xbox wasn't following suit, most could see this as a simple growing pain misstep that some consoles do in their first year or so. A stupid move that they get rightly lambasted for, and then is quickly forgotten as we move into the meat of the console age. But now Square Enix has now bought this scheme to PC, and that makes it a lot more real. Sony fans are happy to put up with Sony's crap because they believe in some twisted concept of 'brand loyalty', it's really rather sad. PC fans don't have any such delusions, and their relationship with Square is rocky as it is, so if Enix wants a fight over pricing then they've got one.

Although this might just be a fight which wages itself, because it hardly took any time at all for people to raise the fact that- oh look: the PC Port of FF7R is a piece of crap anyway! Well that is to say it's a port of a game that is said to be a very decent translation of an RPG classic, but a port made by a team who clearly don't think of the PC players as a viable market as evidenced by the effort they put in. Yes, in typical Square Enix fashion this port is about as optimised as horse-drawn carriage. That simile didn't make a whole lot of sense, but neither does selling a game with consistent frame drops on a 3080 for busy scenes! If one of those god-cards can't smoothly run this thing, I don't even want to think what the damage would be if I tried to run that on my system! (My graphics card would probably just explode.)

And whatsmore, we're looking at a port which fails to provide the standard acceptable amount of graphical options to keep your average PC fan happy; and at this point that's pretty much the laziest possible thing a port can do. Is it really breaking the bank to spend a week or so creating an options menu? Because even if it is, then that'll be worth the time because that work would demonstrate even the slightest degree of understanding for the PC market. PCs, by their nature, are varied and non-uniform beings, with some entire rigs unique and entirely different to others. We need to have the sort of optional flexibility to tailor experiences to our specific rigs. And if you can't manage that much, can't deliver an optimised experience and can't even release the thing on all store fronts, then frankly your work isn't worth £60, let alone £70.

Of course, this isn't the first time that Square has spat in the face of PC fans. Seminal android hack and slasher game, Nier Automata, famously launched on PC with pretty much no PC options whatsoever aside from resolution tweaking. They may as well have just slapped a last gen console emulator in the box and sold that. This was lambasted, reported on, shouted from the high heavens, and what did Square do? Nothing. It fell to modders to create their own configuration menus for the game. What is that about? Making your community handle basic utilities? What are you worth anyway? Final Fantasy XV is said to have been a bit better, to the point where people could at least tailor the experience they wanted out of that game. But 7 Remake? The biggest release they've had these past 3 years? Not worth the work, apparently.

For the games that you desperately want to support and make sure does well, it breaks one's heart to see the decision maker behind the title doing everything in their power to screw things up. A dedicated and talented team sat down and made Final Fantasy 7 Remake, and then the higher-ups swooped in and stuck their stupid price tag on it and then handed it off to a team of PC illiterates to botch up a port. What are you supposed to do as an artist when your superiors are actively sabotaging you? I would almost feel bad for Tetsuya Nomura, but I haven't forgiven him for the HD remake of Chain of Memories. (And likely never will.) Do I expect Square to back down, or fix their port? Maybe... on the 'fixing' part at least, there's no way in a million years they'll stop greedily slobbering over the premium pricing in their hedonistic ritual dedicated to profligacy. And this, once more for mister Days Gone director (wherever he may be), is why I buy only on steep discounts.  

Final Fantasy 7 Remake: The series?

Final Fantasy overload!

Tetsuya Nomura must be a trip to work with. At that base level, no matter where you look at the guy, there's no dying he has oodles of talent. He's the director of the much beloved Kingdom Hearts franchise afterall and has turned that into one of the longest running video game crossover events of all time. (No doubt contributing to the hefty Square Enix coffers in the process) But my god does he know how to drag things out. At this point I'm literally at a loss. Is this intentional? Is this some malady of genius? How in the heck did Final Fantasy 7 Remake get to be an episodic adventure with this many moving parts to it? You'd have thought that the Square guys would have learned their lesson when they gave him Final Fantasy Versus 13 and it took 10 years to make. (And then became XV) That's not 10 years for Nomura to make, mind you; no they had to pull him from the project because it took so long. I'm not entirely convinced that the episodic nature of Final Fantasy 7 Remake wasn't some desperate compromise to get this game out once Square management saw him naming his directing successor in his will.

I say this because at this point it it's far past speculation; Final Fantasy 7 is Tetsuya's new series of games in the same vein that Kingdom Hearts was. He's going to be telling this story for the next decade at least, and before you dare imply there's not enough content for that, oh don't you worry! At the recent Playstation Play event he made it clear how that is absolutely no problem for him and his 'adaptation' process. Final Fantasy 7 Remake will be celebrating the imminent death of it's exclusivity with a PS5 glowup that comes along with a brand new chapter called Final Fantasy VII: Intergrade. And yes, I mean 'Brand New' as in 'none of this story was in the original FF7, what are we doing, argh!' Yep, not content with simply straying from the script, Tetsuya is doing a Koishbe Rohan and just straight rewriting that. Heaven's Door or no. New chapter here, new character there; Aerith turns out to be moonlighting as Sephiroth and turns into a magical three-winged angel in the third act. Anything's on the table now!

So what could this new content possibly bring to warrant being attached to the storyline before a chapter 2? Well, Yuffie Kisharagi of course! That's right, the Wutai princess and everyone's favourite Materia thief is sneaking into the picture for a brand spanking new adventure in- Midgar? Is- is that allowed? Yuffie's been to Midgar before meeting the group? That seems slightly off to me, as though it's an example of a speed-running sequence break or something. I thought part of her development was in that she was inexperienced and hadn't visited the far off corners of the world yet; but to be fair I haven't played the original for years so I might be misremembering that. Either way, who cares; the final character has been added to truly bring the FF roster to full power and I'm so happy I can almost overlook how this spells disaster for anyone who wanted to see this remake finished before their grandchildren were born. Nomura's in this one for the long haul boys. (Yes, I know Cait Sif also isn't in the roster yet. But can I just say, screw Cait Sif. He's creepy, his whole deal is creepy and I couldn't care less if- wait I forgot about Cid. and Vincent. Dammit...)

Hmm? You're not yet sold that this is an indication of an impending barrage of FF 7 content, the likes of which cannot even be conceived of? In that case, allow me to introduce you to the other titles of the event. What about 'Final Fantasy 7: The First Solider'; The Battle Royale. Oh you did not misread me, dear viewer, I said Battle Royale. What's that? You thought the trend of endless Battle Royale games based on every intellectual property was dying? How foolish: it's only just begun! Now be forced to live in a world that takes place several decades before the beginning of FF7 and seems to be following the members of SOILDER- killing each other I guess? Not really sure how this is supposed to fit into the storyline, truth be told. Sort of sounds like a waste to even reveal the time setting. But that's nothing compared to their second game.

Okay, so bare with me while I try to wrap me head around this because I hardly get it myself. So it seems that Square are also releasing an IOS linear chapter-based turn-based version of FF7 that's animated in a style similar to, yet fundamentally different from, the original game. The big difference being that when the battles start it enters into a turn-based rendering of the remake's graphics rather than a voxel stage. Now, and here's the part I don't understand; apparently this remake is going to consist of the entire original storyline, which doesn't really make any sense because the Remake both isn't done yet and is stepping away from that storyline. It's also going to contain, apparently, Advent Children, Crisis Core, Before Crisis and Dirge of Cerberus. Now considering that Advent Children is a movie, Before Crisis is a 2004 mobile game, Crisis Core is a PSP game and Dirge of Cerberus is a third person shooter; I'm a little confused. Oh it's called 'Ever Crisis' by the way. 

Are they telling us that this a kinda faithful remaster of Final Fantasy VII heading our way along with remastered versions of every single piece of canonical FF7 content? Are they going to rebuild all of the content to run in an 'abridged' manner similar to how FF7's base game will appear in this pack? How will that work when Advent Children is a movie? Or is it just a compilation pack? There are so many questions to answer, but even in our current enlightened state I have to admit; this is kinda looking too good to be true. I say that to mean; a lot of these other FF7 game are hard to get our hands on now due to the constant evolution of hardware. Dirge and Crisis Core are made for consoles that aren't supported or made anymore and I have no clue how one would even go about getting a ROM for a 2004 mobile game working. Bringing them all together in whatever form it turns out to be is quite simply valuable. Incredibly valuable. I wonder how much Square will need to gouge potential buyers in order to justify this level of effort to themselves.

And then there's the issue to bring up of this game apparently coming to IOS and Android. What's that all about? From the sounds of it, this is looking to be a rather meaty compilation collection; shouldn't it come to actual consoles and PC? I've heard people compare this to Final Fantasy XV's 'Pocket Edition', and that would make sense if that's how the base game is going to shape up; (and I suspect it is) but even that ended up going to PC in no time, so what's this suddenly mobile favouritism about? I'm simply asking because the amount of value on offer here stands to seriously skewer the mobile marketplace more than Square already does on the daily. That's a place for low effort shovel-ware, not lovingly crafted compilation pieces! Have mercy on the app stores, Tetsuya; think about the bottom line!

But you know what the worst thing is about this impending and unending wave of Final Fantasy VII? The part that really grinds my gears to mush? I'm here for it. Every single little bit of it, I'm down. I'll be honest; I love the world of Final Fantasy VII and always get left with that feeling of sadness whenever we have to leave a world of FF characters behind. Getting to see them all again, going on so many new adventures alongside old one's that shape up differently to how you remember: that's very special to me. Even as the Final Fantasy franchise moves on and XVI comes out, I'll always have more room in my heart for VII's endless journey and the plight of Cloud Strife. I know that absolutely makes me part of the problem, but darn it I can't help myself. You got me, Nomura. You got me.

SEPHIROTH

 Joins the fight

So I'm pretty sure that I've literally never disclosed this to anyone before, but I'm actually quite a big fan of Smash Bros as a fighting game, even if I absolutely suck at it. (Put me against another human being and I might as well be playing blindfolded) As such I do have a mild interest whenever I see that there's a new character reveal coming to Smash Bros because I'll never miss out on seeing the next addition to 'the biggest crossover in gaming'. And maybe I say that simply because I cherish the days when that title can still be held by something as well intentioned and cool as 'Smash Bros' before Fortnite manages to close the gap surely and steadily. (They just bought DC into their world which already had Marvel in it! Their ascension to tyrannical supremacy is inevitable at this point) And what's more, I'm ever interested in the characters that are turned down from such a role because I find that just as curious.

So this month heralded us a reveal that Sephiroth, the one-winged Angel, is our new addition to the cast, and quite honestly, I had to do a double take as I realised he wasn't already there. Yeah, it just sort of makes so much sense for his ludicrously long sword to be in the Smash arsenal that I wasn't remotely blown away about the brilliance off it all. Which isn't to say I disproved of the addition, far be it. Sephiroth belongs in Smash Bros right next to his other-half Cloud, and I look forward to all the cool ways the two of them can showdown in mock recreations of Final Fantasy 7's key moments. Also, I adore the setting of Midgar, so getting to explore a new themed location in that world is just fine by me. I wish we'd got to see a little more of his final smash (Which I assume was what was hinted by him becoming his One Winged Angel form at the end) but I like a little secret now and then so I can't get too riled up about it. Although at the end of the day I'm just not blown away because this doesn't really seem all that surprising.

When it comes to the franchises that crossover in Smash Bros, the coolest thing about them is that they go further than Nintendo licences and span the gaming world. (I mean, they're mostly Nintendo Licenses, but there's some exceptions) You've got Konami's Snake from Metal Gear who brings his gadgets and equipment to litter the stage and turn it into a death trap for the other fighters; Square's Joker from Persona 5 who brings a literal gun to the battlefield, although I guess it's a 'metaphorical gun' like in the game, huh; and even Capcom's Ryu and Ken, further prolonging fighting game's longest rivalry. Heck, even Microsoft/Mojang's Steve joined the fight just recently, in a pretty cool break from the traditional Smash bros visual style that I think most responded well to. I love it when non-Nintendo properties join in the fun, but Smash Bros already had a Final Fantasy character, and whatsmore he was also from the exact same Final Fantasy game. (You guys know there's like 15 of them now, right?)

Although I suppose it shouldn't exactly be a shock to see Sephiroth here given that the most substantial move from the Final Fantasy series this year (Aside from the announcement of 16) was the release of part 1 of 'Final Fantasy 7 Remake'. For years now Square have been riding the success of this one game seemingly over all their others, coming back for spin-off games, a movie and now a multi-part remake that's going to span the next decade at this rate. Thus I guess this Smash Bros placement can be seen as a sort of promotion for that series, as if it really needs promoting given how the wider RPG world gravitated around FF7R as much as anyone else. I'm not saying there's anything inherently wrong with this, per se, just that it would've been cool to see more Final Fantasy characters from the breadth of the franchise take the centre stage.

For example, what about Squall? I know he has a gunblade, but they let Joker in and as I said, that dude bought a glock, so some fantasy revolver sword shouldn't rustle feathers too much in comparison! Or you could bring in Tidus, with his famous laughing scene as a taunt, or maybe even Lighting if you're really stretching for a protagonist. Noctis could bring his godly summons to the plate which would all be very visually epic and I just had a thought that they could make the entirety of Class Zero a single character! Due to the way that every single student is affixed to a different held weapon and fighting style, there could be a sort of switching function where instead of getting strong moves the player switches to another student and thus changes up the basic moveset completely. It would be trading easy smash-ability with versatility but I think that'd be kind of fun on the competitive level. What I'm trying to say is; Sephiroth isn't exactly scraping the barrel, there could have been more done.

And this all just brings me back to the discussion surrounding Mai Shiranui and how she essentially got blacklisted from ever appearing in Smash by the creator. Mai, for those that don't know, is perhaps the most well known character from a fairly comatose fighting franchise known as Fatal Fury, and Smash Bros. has in the past served as the only means through which long dead franchises still get coverage to this day. That being said, it was rather definitively stated that Mai would never make it to the game due to her general design which I guess was considered too provocative for a Nintendo game. (Never mind the BSDM witch who dresses in leather and attacks people with her clothes made out of magic hair) It just kind of sucks that actual fighting games don't get representation on a stage where it would really be appreciated, whereas FF7 gets over-represented with another character to go alongside the new game release.

But with all that being said I will say that I do find Sephiroth to be one of the more interesting characters being added this Smash DLC cycle. He's a lot more exciting than Min min, at least, who literally hails from a game that Nintendo themselves pulled the plug on because it wasn't performing well enough. (So you killed her and then dragged her to Smash to prop her up like a trophy? You're sick, Nintendo. Just sick.) Although the typical grumbles of "Oh great, another sword wielder" are inevitable, I hold out hope that the sheer character and charm of Sephiroth's stupidly long katana will make him feel unique from the twenty Fire Emblem characters already here. I mean if nothing else it'll give him unprecedented sword reach, that can't feasibly be overlooked, can it?

So I guess the only thing to do now is speculate over who might the next character added to Smash, and do so with absolutely no regard given to the likely possibilities! So my first guess would be someone from the Resident Evil franchise, given that the game already shows up within Ultimate as Spirits but with no actual character representation. Unfortunately, most of the characters from RE use guns so I think it'd have to be a villain which pretty much makes Albert Wesker an obvious shoe in for the position. Else we could have the crewmates from Among Us if we're going to get super memey up in here, I think the kill animations lend enough material for a full move set. Or maybe even Johnny Silverhand from Cyberpunk 2077. He can spit out profanities every 5 seconds and crash the hardware whenever more than two characters are on screen. (Ops, I think I slipped into bitterness over CDPR again, better cut this short) So those are my not at all tongue-in-cheek suggestions, what are yours?

Character themes; Storytelling done interesting!

Music is my weapon

I am not a music blog, that much should be pretty much apparent by now, and that likely comes a distinct lack of a music background. I mean sure, I've played a few instruments throughout the years (about 3) but never found one that I was truly serious about and likely never will. In fact, the most music exposure I've had lately has been me teaching myself how to play the keyboard during all this extra in-doors time we've been having this year. (It's fun, I can play most of 'Dearly Beloved' now, the ending always slips always from me.) But none of that makes me ineligible from enjoying and appreciating great music whenever I experience it, and how could I not? Music is everywhere! We hear it blasting out of radios in our cars or out of other peoples', blaring down on us during grocery shopping, assaulting us on every advert everywhere; and sure, most of it is so generic that we forget it within the hour, but sometimes you get a great song that can really make your day and/or elevate your current experience. Music can do that, thus as you can imagine when it comes to the way that music is used in gaming I'm always hyperaware whenever I hear something great which really hits me in a way I wasn't expecting or am inspired by.

Quite a while back you might remember me writing a piece about the forbidden love I shared with 'Dragon's Dogma' which ended with an incredibly rudimentary analysis of it's theme, which just goes to show you how much I pay attention to this stuff despite having literally no idea what in the heck I'm talking about. And gaming is such a ripe ground for music and it's potential applications that there are innumerable opportunities for me to totally embarrass myself, so that's exactly what I'm going to do today. You see, I've understood for a while now that some of the most prevalent uses for Orchestras in the modern age has been in the gaming world outside of concerts, thus gaming has been awash with increasingly more epic soundtracks throughout the years. But rather than undertaking the herculean task of reviewing OSTs, I want to take a more nuanced approach at a single aspect of video game soundtracks; the humble Character theme.

'Theme', obviously, is a term used to describe a common idea permeating through a piece of work or several, and in terms of music it's usually used to describe a piece of music which is associated with a specific event, location or character. In art they exist as an extension of the storytelling in portraying the sorts of ideas that are difficult or impossible to express through dialogue or even visual stimuli. I'm talking emotions like Joy, Sorrow, Guilt and Anger; but it can even extend further to express traits such as Innocence, Duplicity or Insanity. Music can be such a powerful tool when used effectively, as it speaks this sort of universal language that our minds just respond to without even really understanding what's going on. A skilled storyteller can use this to make the audience feel a certain way without their knowledge, setting them up for a powerful story beat or emotional send-off. In fact, I think that character themes are the most rewarding of all types of musical themes.

That's because a Character Theme needs to achieve a number of things; it needs to be elucidating, reflective and versatile, (Not all the times, admittedly) it needs to be the sort of thing that can play over several different points in the story and fit the situation, as well as be distinct enough to wrestle the attention of the audience and let them know that it's this character's turn to take the centre stage. And a powerful enough theme can exist beyond the character itself and echo as a mere memory which evokes all the emotions you once associated with them. This is the sort of thing that I live for as a lover of entertainment, and anyone who's ever picked at my Youtube music recommendations or even my plain playlist can attest to that. (I've listened to 'Stardust Crusaders' so many times it's the theme tune to my dreams now.) But as fun as it would be to break down 'Il Vento D'oro' and all the ways it's one of the greatest themes of all time, I should probably keep on brand with gaming for the time being. (We can explore The Golden Wind at a later date)

If I think back to one of the most evocative and memorable characters in gaming they are almost always synonymous with a sound, and that can either be just the sound of their voice or the theme that accompanies them. I think that one of the best examples of this could be one character who recently had her theme officially remastered, Aerith Gainsborough from Final Fantasy VII. A track that's almost as memorable as the game which spawned it, Aerith's Theme never fails to kindle fond sorrow in it's romantic yet lonesome tunes. I've always found that the disparity between the sweeping orchestra and the single instruments were really powerful in conveying the true isolation that Aerith, being one of the literal last of her kind, endures. It's a side of her that you rarely see through the course of the narrative, masked by her inherently cheery attitudes, but one which you hear nonetheless through this tune. It's also a truly fantastic piece of music that deserves all the recognition and appreciation that it enjoys.

In stark contrast, yet somehow along the same emotional frequency, and that is the sombre track known as Gwyn's Theme. Situated in the notoriously esoteric Dark Souls franchise, 'Gywn, Lord of Cinder' has a slightly more important role in the Dark Souls franchise as in itself it should elucidate the listener to another layer of the story, however sleight. The Dark Souls franchise is full of call backs and rhythming phrases in their music alone, but I think most can agree none do so more memorably than this one Piano theme. A masterpiece of simple complexity, Gwyn's theme forsakes the large orchestras and the bellowing choirs in favour of two simple pianos immediately bringing the player in for an intimate moment to this intimate duel. One piano plays this relentless and desperate rythym whilst the other cuts in with this beautiful but shrill melody. Of course, anyone familiar with the Story of Gywn will know how this reflects the god-king's determination to preserve the First Flame from which birthed his entire legacy. Everything he has ever worked towards is dependant on keeping this flame alive, which is challenged by nature itself as the flame is doomed to die. By the time you reach him you've stripped his lords of their souls and am merely facing off against an iron-willed yet hollowed man who's last prevailing desire is to protect the flame until he breathes his last.

But that's not all, because I want to look at Dark Souls once again in order to pick out a mostly different (with emphasis on 'mostly') character theme in 'The Soul of Cinder', the final boss of Dark Souls 3. Here is a theme that lays on the scale and drama, even kicking off will a church bell and deep choirs to make you instantly aware of the gravity of this foe you're facing. But beneath all of that there's this vicious and unpredictable string section that's fast and sharp in a way that captures this sense of serious danger. Once more you are facing off against a single huge enemy, hardly a sight for sore eyes in the Dark Souls world, but with the horns and Church-esque thematic touches there's this sense that this Soul of Cinder is of more consequence than perhaps anyone you've ever faced. And that's because the Soul is a deific representation of every single previous Lord of Cinder who has ever linked the flames. (I.E. every single past player of Dark Souls 1 and 2) Funnily enough the gameplay also tells a bit of the story here, as The Soul's entire moveset is based upon player abilities and animations in order to make the comparison more apparent. But all that merely covers the first half of the theme, because there is a distinct difference for the rest of it. For the second phase of the fight there is a moment wherein the theme grows higher than it has ever done before (coinciding with the Soul of Cinder calling upon his second half bar) and at the pinnacle the track morphs into a shade of that same shrill Piano melody from Dark Souls 1. (the one representing Gwyn) This also marks a trend toward the track becoming a lot quieter and more solemn, mirroring the way in which this fight is no longer against all the Lords of Cinder, they've been beaten, but now it's a fight against the one Soul more stubborn than all of them, that of Gwyns. Again, the gameplay reflects this as the Soul's moveset literally becomes Gwyns, providing an incredibly powerful call back through merely the musical theme and the gameplay; for reference: this is one of the reasons why I consider Dark Souls the pinnacle of video game storytelling potential.

And finally I want to mention a very different character theme in just about every fashion, although that doesn't mean it isn't an epic, just in an entirely different manner. I'm talking about 'Pledge of Demon' from Yakuza 0. There's less of a narrative within the music with this one, but the theme still exists to colour in the image of one of the game's more enduring characters, the Dojima Family Lieutenant, Kuze. Rather contrary to the classical influences that make up Dark Souls, 'Pledge of Dragon' features harsh and relentless electric guitars, drums and just some brilliant production tricks thrown in there to spice things up. Quite simply, it a theme that conveys this power and anger to it, perfect to accompany the man who will "tough it out to the end", as Kuze himself preaches. Rather then a elucidation upon a side of this character we may not see too often, 'Pledge of Demon' is a reinforcement of everything that Kuze claims to be, fitting as he is one of the most upfront and straight villains in the game, but in way that absolutely plays to his strength. A strong theme for a strong character.

Those are just a few of the character themes that have been playing over and over in my head for the past couple of weeks, but of course there are so many more like them. If I didn't find the lyrics so ear scrappingly cringey, I might have even mentioned 'Bury the Light' or any of the newer Sonic themes. (I could have written an entire blog on the way that 'Big Arms' portrays both the hero and villain in the story. Okay, maybe just a couple of paragraphs, but they would be passionate paragraphs!) I think character work is so of the most interesting and most diverse tasks that a storyteller can embark on, and when that collides with music I just find it utterly fascinating. I'll be sure to keep my ear out for any more instant classics and maybe even create a sequel blog, who knows.

Subs or Dubs?

The debate that split a generation!

Here's a question for you, are you down for Subs or dubs? This is the sort of query that dons many a forum page for various international entertainment properties and it's definition whittles down to this; when viewing a foreign-speaking product do you prefer to read the subtitles and hear the original audio or listen to the dubbed audio in your native language. Now obviously this whole 'either or' question spawned first as a gate-keeping measure in the more vitriolic circles of the anime fandom community, but I feel that it has it's place in the world of gaming as well. Quite often when games come from Japan, for instance, it'll be with a choice between a Japanese audio track or an English one, and many look to one or the other as being the 'pure' experience whilst denigrating the other. (Traditionally subs are favoured) Thus I though it might be interesting to discuss my experience with this sort of phenomena.

Whilst not explicitly related, my first personal run-in with localisation discrepancies came when I first played Final Fantasy 7, which if you've read this blog you'll know that wasn't actually too long ago. In something of a glowing reflection of the classic, I fell in love with the adventure with no prior nostalgia goading me into doing so, and that was on the strength of the fantastic music, world and characters. Yes, finally I could understand what everyone raved about when they played this old gem, about time! I could finally join in when people swapped stories about their favourite moments between the heroes, Cloud, Barret, Tifa, Aeris and- wait... who's Aeris? Well, that's Aeris Gainsborough, the famous heroine of the story! But when I played the game I never met an Aeris, for me my memories were painted with Aerith. Even as the remake was being marketed earlier this year there were grumblings from people about how it was supposed to be 'Aeris' not 'Aerith', and that's how I learned that there was apparently a little muddle-up in the original English localisation.

Okay, maybe 'Muddle-up' isn't the correct term, that makes it sound accidental, but essentially there was a time when the famous heroine's name was sanitised to Aeris in order to- I don't know, sound more palatable to the English tongue, I suppose? The consequence was there was this little discrepancy between what I experienced and what "OG fans" went through, and that's the sort of crevasse that can widen into a divide in the right environment. That's partially the reason why people get so antsy about the whole 'Subs vs Dubs' battle, because people want so desperately for others to undergo the same experience that they did as part of the sharing process, out of some unrealistic desire to have them feel what you felt. This balloons to being an almost delusional ask when talking about video games, because those experiences tend to be so open-ended and/or player dependant that there is no way you can replicate your experience for someone else as you might for a movie or TV show. But that's merely my theory behind why this exists, let me share a more relevant example of how this has effected me.

No too long back I decided that I wanted to finally get a game which would fully to live up to my Nintendo Switch's potential as my dedicated RPG-playing device. As such I ended up picking up the wonderful 'Xenoblade Chronicles 2' and thus embarked on a journey into a new JRPG. If there's one thing that I didn't expect from the game, however, it was that I would be so incensed by the Dub. Now let me be absolutely clear; I'm not the sort of person to get uppity about a dubbing job. Back in the day I watched Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z with dubs, I enjoyed what little of Cowboy Bepop that I watched with dubs, but this just sounded so unbelievably wrong. I think the best way to describe it would be that feeling you get from watching old Bruce Lee movies and hearing the English audio track layered on that fit neither the character nor even the lip flaps. Even when Bruce himself was dubbing, it just didn't work. That was my innate gut reaction to 'Xenoblade Chronicles 2', and it threatened to ruin my play experience.

I think my situation may have been exacerbated a bit by the fact that I could instantly identify a lot of the characters that I met from the moment dot, and so I already had an idea of who they might be from the moment the game started. Rex was your typical gender-swapped Disney princess, living his day-to-day and longing to go out and explore the wider world and discover that big wide something. Gramps was the mythical, implacable sage who's job it was to scold Rex's rash behaviour and essential just be the Sebastian to his Ariel. And Nia was the short-tempered (and heighted) little firecracker with a minor Napoleon-complex mixed in with the odd Tsundere stereotype. These were recognisable archetypes; which is why I find it so weird that the localisation team decided that the extent of their characterisation would lie in making half the cast Welsh.

Now to be clear I have nothing against the welsh people, their approach to naming things does upset me, but I'm sure the people are nice. But when I say that the English dubs of Xenoblade Chronicles are largely notable for being Welsh and nothing else, I mean it. The VO is just so passionless and unenthused that it really does astound me. There's one notable scene early on (Spoilers for the literal introductory chapters) where Rex first meets his ward Pyra in a dreamscape, and the English dubs interpretation to Rex finding out that he was just killed comes across with the same intensity as realising that you misspelled someone's name in that text you just sent. I'm being dead serious. In fact, that scene alone made me quit out the game and seriously contemplate whether I wanted to continue. (I remember commenting something along the lines of "This is F***ing dire!") Then, like a literal Deus Ex Machina, Nintendo sent their customary promotional email headed "Nani! Did you know there's a free Japanese VO pack for Xenoblade Chronicles 2?" (I'm not kidding, it was that out-of-the-blue, like in a freakin' movie.) To which my response to this hypothetical savoir was "No I did not, but arigato Nintendo-sama. Domo Arigato."

My story has a happy ending. I downloaded the VO pack and suddenly everyone sounded exactly as they should and Xenoblade Chronicles 2 ended up becoming one of my favourite Switch games. But I'd imagine I'm in the minority for that. What my story does highlight, however, is the existence of 'bad dubbing' which is one of the key reasons why fans often say to stick to subtitles first. It's one of the reasons why I cannot watch 'JoJo's Bizarre Adventure' with the English dub (Why is Dio's English VA trying to pull off a British accent without nailing the most basic of our pronunciation rules? It's just rude.) But not all dubbing is automatically bad, and some can even become downright iconic. I love Sean Schemmel's Goku and I cannot see that character's face with any other voice, even a Japanese one. And on some very rare occasions, both Dubs are great and I honestly can't pick between the two. The Final Fantasy 7 Remake, for example, features a great English and Japanese cast for the main characters. (I still get a little gooey remembering Tifa's Japanese VO)

I suppose what I'm trying to say is that the whole 'Subs vs Dubs' debate is kinda dumb, at the end of the day you should just gravitate towards good voice acting, whatever language it's in. I may understand precious little Japanese, but that doesn't mean I don't get goosebumps during the most intense moments of Yakuza 0, and that's just the power of a great performance, that level of mastery transcends language barriers. I do enjoy hearing some other languages in my games from time to time and do hope that sort of diversity doesn't get stamped out of the industry like Hollywood have done in theirs. Here's hoping for a HD remaster of Jade Empire with Chinese VOs! (I wrote that as a joke but actually that sounds pretty bad ass; I really want that now...)

Another Final Fantasy 7 Trailer? You guys are too much!

But it's so Pretty!

"But you literally wrote about a FF7 trailer a couple weeks back." Yeah, I know but I don't care. I'm in a real bad mood right now and I need something to geek out over, and this cool new trailer for a video game which I don't know when i'll get my hands on (as I don't own a PlayStation) is literally the only thing I have going for me right now. Besides, in my last blog on this subject I did make a few factual errors as well as a specific prediction that this trailer seems to have proven wrong, so I'm honor bound to dive into this and correct my folly. Before I do, however, I will mention that, due to how deep this trailer goes, I'll likely be touching on events throughout the entire game (Because this Remake will only consist of the first 20 or so hours of the original product) so take that into account if you hate spoilers. Then again, maybe I'll be completely wrong with my coverage as this trailer has proved that the team aren't afraid of changing elements of the story to suit a better narrative. (Which is something I'm literally ecstatic for.)

Firstly, this new trailer kicks off with kid Cloud and kid Tifa in their 'hometown' discussing Cloud's imminent departure. This is the moment just before Cloud makes that classic 'promise' which Tifa attempts to twist his arm about all those years later and this entire scene is, at least in the original, a flashback moment that happens whilst Cloud is staying in the Gainsborough household. The narrative tool of flashbacks isn't something I ever expected the team to walk back on, so I'm not surprised to see them used here. In the original they helped seed the relationship between Tifa and Cloud but, much more importantly, they laid the groundworks for Cloud and his idolization of Sephiroth. Which is a key element of their initial dueling dynamic and works as a great starting point for Cloud on his journey to saving Midgar (Also, did I write 'Midgard' in my last blog? I feel like I did.)

This leads into a scene that I honestly didn't expect, of Cloud and the team confronted by Sephiroth in front of, what looks like, a vat containing Genova. Now, I could be misremembering the original game, but I don't remember this scene playing out with the entire crew like it is, which would imply that this is a new addition. Of course, there is the scene where Tifa and Cloud confront Sephiroth, but that was supposed to be a flashback and I don't remember that happening until Act 2. (Again, it's been a good number of years since I played through the original.) I do like this change, however, as it introduces the main rival early on and reinforces the dramatic tension between the two of them. It also makes for "A touching reunion."

I positively loved the next few scenes, as we see a brief cut through all of the hugely memorable supporting cast from this game such as Scarlett (perfectly in character with her henchman foot-stool) and Don Corneo, the creep who infamously tries to pimp off your party. Who are little more than children. (Huh, Final Fantasy 7 is a lot darker than I originally thought.) The thing which I loved most of all, however, was the fact that we got to see the scene in the Honeybee Inn where Cloud is forcibly crossdressed! I was almost positive that they were going to cut that out or tone it down, but instead they have hammed it up to such I degree that I feel like the Yakuza developers have to be taking their hats off to these guys. It makes me hopeful that the team know precisely how important the weird and humorous elements of the original are in order to outset the comparatively po-faced main narrative. These guys get it!

Next comes a little bit of a correction. I previously stated that we had heard the voices of all the main cast that would be appearing in the game as Cait Sif, Vincent, Yuffie (my fav), and Red XIII didn't show up in the Midgar. Obviously I was completely mistaken as Red XIII obviously shows up in Midgar (can't believe I forgot that) and we do technically meet Cait Sif, if you're picking up what I'm putting down. Also, I totally forget that Cid is one of the main cast, probably because I never used him in my party. (The guy's a mechanic, why would that make him a good fighter?) Anyways, we get to hear Red and, just like I expected, he sounds exactly like he should. Everyone in this title just sounds perfect and that is astounding considering the source material was entirely written. (Yes, I know Advent Children exists, but I've never seen it so I don't care.) Especially that one moment wherein we hear Aerith teasing Cloud; I felt like I actually remembered hearing that dialogue years ago before realizing that I only ever heard it in my mind. Truly on point voice work so far. (I do wonder how they'll make Vincent not sound like a pretentious arse, though.)

Then we get to see gameplay and hear the battle music and I'm surprised to say that I'm actually less thrilled about this part of the trailer. It's not that the gameplay looks bad at all, in fact it all looks exceptionally fun and I'm just eager to get my hands on it, but as a huge fan I'm more interested in seeing my favourite scenes reimagined. It was pretty cool to see the Moogle summon (which I used way past it's effectiveness threshold in my initial playthrough) but I was more curious about the Leviathan summon. Correct me if I'm wrong (which I'm not, I just looked up a picture to compare) but that looks like the exact same model that was used for The Hydraean in Final Fantasy 15, which paints a cool connective thread between the series. Even if the stories and worlds are completely distinct from one another, the creatures look the same. (Does that mean this game's Bahamut is going to look even a slimmer as cool as Final Fantasy 15's? Guess we'll have to wait and see.)

Surprisingly, this trailer actually goes so far as to cover all the events in Midgar, even showing a brief glance of the team's escape from the city as a whole sector is destroyed. So basically they've just shown you what is going to be the end of the first game in their trailer, I know that a lot of people have played the original but there will be entirely new audience coming to this game, so perhaps they should play their cards a little closer to their chests in the future. What, are they going to show us the entirety of One-Winged Angel during the trailer for the third game? (I'm assuming these games are going to be trilogy.) Or maybe this is hinting that this game will actually extend slightly past the events of Midgar and into the next few areas. But honestly the crumbling of Midgar is such an amazing cliffhanger that I can't imagine the team screwing that up with some needless extra scenes.

The only that is still worth mentioning is the fact that the battle music is a lot more versatile than even I thought, and I love that tune. It makes for a solid 'swashbuckling adventure' theme that I feel like won't get too grating in prolonged bouts. Oh, and there's an odd moment of the team fighting Genova which I'm almost certain never happened in the original. I mean, I think they have a run-in before meeting Red, but I don't remember a full-blown fight. Finally, I would like to offer my predictions of one major change that I suspect is coming our way. Fans of Final Fantasy 7 will know what I mean when I say that I, whilst watching this trailer and seeing all my Midgar friends bought to life again, was struck with both love and heartache. I adore the chance to meet everyone again, but also lament because I know where that relationship is going to go. Or rather, how it will go for one character in particular. (No, not Cait Sif. I hope that little furry bastard stays dead this time.) That scene is the cloud hanging over everyone and it must have struck the developers minds at some point. Now, it would be nigh-on sacrilege for them to mess with it, to offer a way out, the entire emotional crux of the story rests on it, but I'm starting to think that they may throw a little twist in there. I have no 'inside evidence' to support this assumption, merely my gut, but I feel they could be prepping us for a curve ball with all these subtle changes.

What do I mean? Well 'The Twist', as I'll call it to avoid spoiling a game that's literally as old as I am, is very dependant on one thing; the player becoming invested in the characters. Now Japanese RPGs in particular are absolutely great at this, and Final Fantasy literally created the archetype that most of those games follow, but that doesn't mean it'll hit everyone the same way. What I'm trying to say is, wouldn't it be more impactful if 'The Twist' were to occur on whatever character that the player feels most attached to in order to be more effective? The original game even has a moment, just before 'The Twist', where you are given a choice that could influence such a moment. I have no idea how that might play out, and it would probably be stupid if the scene in question doesn't go the way we all expect, but I think it's suitable food for thought.

Well that's enough playing vague, I think, time to wrap up. All I really have to say to conclude this blog is "For the love of god, Square, please bring this to PC!" I cannot get over how excited I am for this title and every day I exist without knowing if this will come to a platform I can work with is actively killing me. It's like how Atlus have been playing coy about whether or not 'Persona 5' will ever come to PC, but have hinted that 'Persona 6' may make it. I don't care about 'Persona 6', it's 5 which made me fall in love with it's weird advertising, quirky characters and impeccable music. I have no doubt that future 'Final Fantasy's will shirk the outdated premise of 'exclucivity', but this is the one that I need in my bloodstream for no other reason than I want to know what it feels like to be excited again. Please, Square, give as something to look forward to, 2020's been exceptionally crappy so far.

The illusion of video games cities

Trapped in a concrete jungle

We talk about about 'environments' here in this blog, and it is for good reason. The world that the player inhabits is one of the most important aspects of creating an immersive and believable gameplay experience and a well realized world can be absolutely unforgettable. Great gameplay and storytelling are only two thirds of the equation, afterall; without a world to care about it can be hard to dedicate yourself to the narrative, requiring your gameplay to be undeniably top notch to ultimately save your product. (Darn it, 'Destiny', you've got me there!) However, there is one particular aspect of world-building (That would be the physical act of world-building rather than the story telling aspect) that proves difficult even for the most skilled developers, and that is the creation of cities.

It's no wonder why, either. The commonly recognized hierarchy of settlements labels the requirements of a large city as; housing between '300,000 and 1,000,000 citizens', and there isn't a game engine on earth that can render that many NPC's complete with AI packages. (Although that same hierarchy technically means that NYC is a 'Metropolis', so don't take it as gospel.) Even using the common tricks of game development it can be incredibly difficult to create a world space that appropriately simulates the magnitude of a city in a believable way. That being said, urban settings are just too tempting for storytellers to completely write them off, so these teams find clever ways to bring their worlds to life. Consequently, I look upon the act of digital city building as an artform worthy a quick look through in this collation list.

One of, if not the, best example of video game cities in the modern age is 'Los Santos' from 'Grand Theft Auto V' and 'San Andreas'. Based on the instantly recognizable LA skyline, 'Los Santos' is a loving recreation of 'The City of Angels' complete from 'Venice beach' all the way up 'Hollywood Boulevard'. Due to the sheer level of skill and love that Rockstar put into erecting this digital masterpiece, Someone could familiarize themselves with these streets enough to give a rough tour of the actual city. Emphasis on 'rough' however, as even in 'GTA V' the city of Los Santos is only about 1/3 of the size of the actual city. (They got all the landmarks in, but cut down on the number of postcodes.) Either way, this is still an incredibly impressive achievement from Rockstar and one can only imagine how they managed to pull off such a colossal city all the way back in 2011. In fact, the only place that seems set to beat it in terms of scale is Cyberpunk 2077's own version of LA, Night City. (More on that later.) On seventh generation consoles, GTA V features a 'cone of vision' based rendering system that generates cars and pedestrians in whatever way you're focused in order to create the illusion of there being more NPCs than there actually are. Of course, there is a safety buffer to this feature to ensure that you don't accidentally ram into a freshly spawned truck, but this was a clever way of fleshing out the far away world objects without slowing down the frame rate. On Eighth Generation consoles, however, Rockstar manage to coax out enough power to stick with a standard rendering distance set-up; assembling that mammoth-of-a-city one neighbourhood at a time.

In Bethesda's RPGs there are quite a few large settlements for player's to explore, however it's only in 'The Elder Scrolls' where we see them attempt to create a fully functional and manned city. Therefore, by putting 'Skyrim' in our sights, we can get a look at the unique way that they handle 'cities'. Using this criteria, I settled on Whiterun as my ideal case-study for Skyrim cities due to it's central location and familiarity with practically every player. (Even though it is actually the third largest city in the game.) Looking at Whiterun, we see something quite peculiar, namely how the 'city' itself only consists of about 30 residents despite being the 'travelling hub' of Skyrim. This comes from the way that Bethesda's game engine renders each and every NPC with such complex stats and AI packages that it simply isn't feasible to create a city consisting of thousands. (Giving the medieval setting, a settlement of thousands would constitute a 'city'.) Despite this glaring misstep, however, we still consider Whiterun a prosperous settlement due to the way that Bethesda bought that place to life. Firstly, the city itself is scaled so that the small number of residents is enough to make the place feel crowded (something that Bethesda dropped the ball with when they made Oblivion); Secondly, their daily routines often have the people meeting up in the same spot, (The central market, the Bannered Mare. etc.) creating more illusionary crowding; and Thirdly, every citizen is realized with their own personality and story. This goes a step beyond the lifeless 'NPC's of other games because it offers so much more narrative value out of every individual. In this way, a city of 30 can balloon in your mind into a functioning city because you believe in every single inhabitant there.

Looking back towards the late 90's, we have another incredibly iconic metropolitan locale in Final Fantasy 7's Midgar. At the time of release, January 1997, this was an incredible vision for everyone to behold especially given that it was the first time that Square had used the processing power of a disk-based system on their much-beloved RPG franchise. As such, we saw 3D models on a 3D world bought to life in the image of an industrial cyberpunk revolution of blinking lights and heavy, chocking exhaust fumes. Midgar was the dystopian, mechanical monolith slapped right in the centre of a narrative which I have described as: the best possible video game adaptation of 'Fern Gully'. With this one location proving to be so important to the overall themes (or rather, the themes of the first third of the game) it was imperative that the team nailed their attempts at realizing it. However, 3D polygonal tech was still new to the Square team (Final Fantasy 6 was still entirely 'sprite-based') and so they had to figure out a way of creating a city despite lacking the technical power to do so. This they pulled off with a collection of clever techniques that would make any aspiring film maker proud. The backgrounds, for one, would be largely rendered stills that were mostly either top-down shots to establish the packed-in nature of the city streets, or brief sweeping vista shots over the majesty of it all, nailing the presentation of the big and the small. The story, too, directed players through a variety of new locations that differed enough visually to establish a sense of different districts and having travelled a great distance between them. And finally that iconic retro-mechanical music that flowed out of every district did wonders to subconsciously bring players to the right mindspace to believe in a city called Midgar.

Seeing as how we've already mentioned CDPR, we should take a look at their first attempt at bringing a huge city to life in 'The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt's: Novigrad. This was a city that was built to be the centrepiece of the second act of this game as it would be the ideal strategic point between the two warring factions and thus a veritable hotbed of interesting activities. The player would find themselves mostly visiting tiny villages in their time throughout the game, and so Novigrad is designed to be quite the system shock once you finally get there and find that the city absolutely spans the eastern waterfront as far as the eye can see. With all the power that CDPR managed to drum up to bring this particular city to life, it's no wonder that it should prove to be one of the biggest spectacles of the age. Unfortunately, Novigrad seemed to work better from afar than it did from the inside. For some reason, Novigrad never did feel particularly 'alive' in the same sense that GTA cities do, possible because of CDPR's over-reliance on uninteractible NPC's to feel up the empty space between objectives. Sure that works well enough in Los Santos, but that is because players are forever constantly aware that they can just knock out anyone on the street that they don't like and interact with the in-built crime system. In The Witcher, should you go nuts and start offing civilians, not only are you acting in a non lore-friendly way, but the game doesn't quite know how to handle it and just sends endless guards after you until you die or get bored. Novigrad serves as an example of how video game cities can be visually impressive whilst feeling ultimately empty, teaching an important lesson on balance between content and spectacle.

Heading back to Bethesda and their other popular RPG franchise, Fallout, we have a modest selection of post-apocalyptic home steads to choose from. Unfortunately, most of Bethesda's Fallout games seem to focus on 'settlements' rather than post-apocalyptic 'societies', but there are a couple of exceptions I picked out. Fallout 4's Fenway Park (or 'Diamond City') is one such locale, but I dislike Fallout 4 so I instead want to look at 3's Rivet City. This is a settlement fashioned out of a pre-war washed up air carrier that has been irradiated to hell and cut in half, so the perfect place to call home, right? Spend any amount of time in the Capital Wasteland and you'll hear about 'Rivet City' as this well defended city of traders, which is likely enough to grab any explorer's interest. Of course, this being a Bethesda game built on a much earlier framework than Skyrim, the reality isn't quite as grand as the story, but that Bethesda formula goes into making it all work. Once again, Rivet City is a 'city' of about 30-40 residents with the majority of that number going towards the security staff, but Bethesda manage to brag that off with style. This time, the centerpiece of the town is a busy market, selling the illusion of this being a major drop-off point for travellers on the road and giving you a chance to believe in the fact that most people don't stick around. Rivet City really shines with it's layout, however, which is intentionally winding and confusing to create the atmosphere of a large living space with countless decks, rooms and shops. Once again, Bethesda have a habit of making a mountain out of a molehill. (In a good way.)

Lionhead's Fable is a series that long sought to bring a distinctive English flair to the fantasy RPG genre, to arguable success. Hence the name of the region, Albion, which is an old poetic name for the British isles that is not so commonly used today. Inevitably, this meant that the team would try their hand at parodying the industrial revolution at some point, and they did exactly that in Fable 3, as the small town of Bowerstone blew up into a light steam-punky cityscape kingdom. This is the player's home for the majority of the game and the location to which they will return repeatedly throughout the course of events surrounding the campaign, so it was in best interest of the Dev team to have the Bowerstone region feel large and real for players play around in. Once again, the key to bringing Bowerstone to life was interaction. As the game engine wasn't powerful enough to render an entire city, (instead they allowed players to visit specific chunks of the city through separate play areas) Lionhead ensured that the player could mess around with ever individual citizen using the franchises patented 'touch system'. (It's not as creepy as that sounds, but is sure is as awkward) Unfortunately, the citizens themselves as mostly just wooden cutout stereotypes, but every little bit helps when it comes to believing in a world. As another added touch, the performance of the player in the main narrative has a knock-on effect to how many folk survive the final conflict, meaning that the world actually reflects upon your consequences, which always helps the immersive-ness a bit.

Let's go back to the 90's for this next entry, as Capcom decided to up the stakes from their last Resident Evil game and elevate their zombie outbreak from a sprawling mansion to the entirety of Raccoon City. This is one of those locations that is practically video game royalty, and for very good reason as it housed one of the greatest horror/action games of all time and managed to make people feel like they were living through a city-wide zombie outbreak despite the game only having the power to render 7 zombies on screen at once. (You need those precious 450 polygons for Leon and Claire, afterall.) This time Capcom made great use of perspective in order to highlight the claustrophobia of a city that they lacked the processing power to render. That meant a lot of high angled shots of alleyways and separated screens. (allowing one area to be loaded at a time.) Of course, once the 2019 remake came along there was no need for any of that subterfuge and we finally got a chance to see Raccoon City rendered in all of it's glory.

Okay, I already did a Bethesda Fallout game, but what about an Obsidian one? Objectively the best Fallout game to date, 'Fallout: New Vegas' featured a memorable post-apocalyptic society in their depiction of the titular 'New Vegas'. This was a city that stood as the crown jewel across the wasteland as it was one of the only major cities to be mostly unharmed by the missiles that ravaged the surrounding landscape. (Or at least, The Strip survived intact. Everything else was still a little banged up.) What resulted was a revival of the hedonistic materialism that everyone loved about the old Las Vegas, only ramped up to eleven with armed robot guards patrolling the whole place. Obsidian managed to make this city feel large through a mixture of Bethesda's techniques and Rockstar's. They stuck a bevy of named NPC's around the area but spruced up the space inbetween with filler folk; helping to make 'the Strip' feel like a heavily frequented location. They also made sure to take advantage of that Vegas glitz and glamour to plaster gaudy lights and advertisements all over the city, imbuing that overwhelming sense of metropolitan capitalism. All this makes New Vegas easily my favourite place in a Fallout game to visit and one of the best examples of creating a believable town.

Finally, as I promised, we come to CDPR's second attempt to create a huge cityscape, Cyberpunk 2077's Nightcity. This is a Cyber-futuristic-dystopian recreation of Los Angeles from the aftermath of just about every terrible event that a single society can undergo. We're talking wars, recessions and at least one nuclear detonation, but through it all the City survived and thrived. (depending on your definition of 'thriving'.) Of course, Cyberpunk 2077 isn't technically out yet so it's impossible for me to determine what specific techniques the team have used to realize this city, but judging from the demo alone we've seen a vast array of thematic distinctions, impressive graphical flairs and independent variety in civilian walk cycles. It seems that the name-of-the-game for CD Projekt word is diversity and, if the demo footage is any indication, they've pulled that particular task off with flying colours.

City building is one of most complex, and rewarding, task that one could ask of developers, and it is one that is particularly revealing as to the specific talents of your team. I love analyzing all the little tips and tricks that developers utilize, seeing what works and what doesn't, just as much as I enjoy believing in these digital spaces. As we steadily trudge into the next generation I can hardly imagine what sort of ingenuity this new breed of hardware will inspire out of developers and how well it'll all translate.