Rebirth is rebirthing?

 

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is the latest step on Tetsuya Nomura's journey to totally transform the game's industry into the movie industry, and may I just say he has done a bang-up job so far! Already we're looking at an industry drowning with sequels, but after Remake came along suddenly Remakes became the fashion and now we're living through that age of discovery- huzzah! Of course, Rebirth is still a game created for the slugs at Sony to guard jealously like dragons leering over exclusivities- so I cannot provide any thoughts about the quality of the game compared the excellent original except to say 'I hope it's good'. (Can't wait to play it... after we get Final Fantasy XVI! Because we're still waiting on the game before it to come out on PC!) And maybe, according to recent news, I'm part of the problem.

The ever present gremlin floating in the sky above us all, with it's eyes on our innermost financial secrets, has conveyed that apparently, Final Fantasy Rebirth is selling far below the margins of the previous title in the franchise. When comparing time frames with Remake, Rebirth is only doing about half the sales and that is- genuinely surprising. Many comments have been made trying to explain this way, but none really seem to stick with me. The 'everyone was in the middle of a pandemic' argument certainly accounts for a few percentages to be knocked off, but was Final Fantasy VII really the kind of the game that casuals flocked to during lockdown? Not Animal Crossing? Because everyone I know who got into gaming around that time played Animal Crossing. Just saying. 

What about the 'it's the novelty of the original game which got people through the door' excuse? I can see the logic there- Final Fantasy VII is the single most beloved game of the franchise, Square teased the possibility of a remake for at least a decade beforehand, that was going to drag in the curious. But surely the fact that game was fantastic would have brought those people back, no? Those players, drawn by their nostalgia, would love to see how the narrative progressed from then on, wouldn't they? Witness those iconic moments, the death of Aerith, the arrival of The Weapons, Cloud's Rebirth, The One Winged Angel? If anything, those week one sales should have been boosted by all those sceptical of the original finally coming around to the fact that this franchise is back. Only PC fans really have an excuse to be wary, given the fact they gave us a badly optimised facsimile of the PS release.

But then- maybe that does have some small effect on sales as well... I won't talk for the massive 'nearly half the sales of the original' divide, but perhaps the knowledge that this franchise is not a purely PlayStation original might have wilted the charm of the Final Fantasy Remake brand some small mite. Were I a PC and Playstation gamer who had recently learned of this, I would probably prefer to wait until the PC launch of the game for the pure fact that I prefer to play JRPGs on my computer and not my console. Perhaps that same philosophy dawned on some others out there too. Why spend the big bucks today for an experience you'd consider inferior. Afterall, the PC launch is going to come with the DLC they'll inevitably throw into the game at some point- and they're not going to deliver the same half-baked port they did last time around, right? (Right?)  

What else? Well, they shared their release month with Helldivers 2- which was an attention hog all of it's own, and Persona 3 Reloaded. (which is a money hog, looking at the price of that DLC coming our way, yeesh!) You would think that Final Fantasy 7 would be big enough to remain competitive in that sort of line-up, to be fair, but I guess the way we frame release date competition has slightly altered given the modern day shift. The $70 price point is just a sore thumb over the games industry, and when two massive games of the month both charge that far north of 50, it does change the considerations of your average consumer. Do they really have that kind of cash to burn, especially when all their friends are killing it on the considerably less expensive Helldivers? $70 was briefly a novelty denoting unimpeachable quality but... well... Skull and Bones. (Ubisoft really do ruin everything, don't they?)

There also appears to be a vast reduction in the amount of coverage I'm seeing this game get within hobbyist circles. I've actually managed to avoid spoilers for the game entirely, without actually really trying. I just assumed that it was a lost cause considering Sony actively hate me and fully intended to gate keep the game for months- but the less specialised Final Fantasy circles seem to have passed almost entirely by the game in favour of the big crazes of the year- which is strange considering Remake was literally everywhere back in 2020. You couldn't escape the damn thing flashed on every single home page- all the FF, all the time! Even Final Fantasy XVI had more of a time in the cultural zeitgeist than it feels Rebirth did- perhaps that is just a symptom of these apparent reduced sales?

At the very least I'm sure that the Final Fantasy 7 team can look forward to the inevitable boost in sales when the PC port comes our way because I'm sure a sizable chunk of their prospective audience is sitting with me, arms crossed and deeply unimpressed, as they court the sleek console for no discernible gain. (Afterall, splitting up your audience is just fantastic for business, right?) I know it's all the hope of snowballs flying through the rings of Beelzebub, but I hope this gives some pause to the Final Fantasy hoarders and makes them realise how much bigger their game launches will be if the most JRPG reverent community was allowed access to them along with the rest of the world. Like a Dragon have figured it out, why can't Final Fantasy?

Of course, given the general dominance of the Final Fantasy brand I would be very surprised if this has any real effect on the trajectory of the Final Fantasy Remake series. Their plans are set in stone miles in advance and they're probably already getting started on Final Fantasy 7 Rewind, or Remember, or Resurrect or whatever it's called. (Mark my words- it's going to be one of those three!) But hey, maybe in the future when the next Final Fantasy alumni is stirring the pot with their remake of Final Fantasy 8 or something (too big to remake, my ass! Tetsuya split 7 into three parts- your excuses ring hollow!) maybe we can be spared another stupid exclusivity deal? Pretty please? (I promise to buy the game if you don't go exclusive, Square!)

Final Fantasy 7 Remake Review

Hold onto this. This anger.

It most certainly has been a very long time coming, but in my defence Square Enix were cruel enough to keep the damn game from me for several years for the crime of not having a Playstation. And Sony. I blame them too. But given enough time for the game to release, then to wait for a Steam release, then to wait for patches that never came so I had to mod it to become playable- needlessly to say that somewhere along the way the allure of Final Fantasy kind of slide off the table and become muddied in the dirt. I wasn't quite in the best state of mind when I finally got around to FF7R, which is why it would have been something of a note-worthy event for said game to have somehow won me over despite my grumblings. And that may just bit a little bit of a hint as to where this blog might be headed, who knows- I haven't written the darn thing yet.

So the original Final Fantasy 7 is a game of huge significance to the landscape of gaming as we currently know it for a few key reasons. Firstly, Final Fantasy was originally pretty close with Nintendo, releasing by Square on Nintendo systems all the way up until 6- from there was born a rift. You see, Final Fantasy developers wanted to move on to a new style of rendering, throwing away the sprites of the past in favour of full 3d rendering. But Nintendo's systems were just simply incapable of rendering the models that Square were aiming for. Even a proposed N64 version ended up lagging the game whenever the model for Behemoth was loaded into it. In the end Square made the shock decision to move to Playstation, who themselves were using a disk-based hardware that seemed much more powerful than Nintendo's entire slate. The choice upset the otherwise close relationship Square had with Enix, causing Nintendo to shun Square for the next half decade, and then fall on the back of a Scottish studio under their umbrella to force them to make an RPG in it's place. That frayed the relationship with that Scottish studio who eventually broke off and went on to start the Grand Theft Auto franchise. Funny how things work out, eh?

After the release and critical success of Final Fantasy VII, the game would live rent-free in the heads of it's developers for many years more. Particularly for character designer Tetsuya Nomura, who would go on to stick the characters from that game in just about every project he worked on from then onwards.- sometimes haphazardly. For all the many strange crossovers that characterise the Kingdom Hearts franchise, it was always Cloud and Sephiroth's little interludes that were the most discordant with literally everything else that was going on at any given time. They weren't even 'characters' within those stories, more just icons representing the mythical essence of the franchise they were birthed from. I guess it was only a matter of time before Square got around to announcing a full blow remake. Back during the early 2000's.

That's right, Final Fantasy 7 Remake was announced during the reveal of Final Fantasy XIII as yet another companion to that giant remodelling of the franchise, which I find especially bizarre given that FF Versus XIII literally featured a character directly inspired by Cloud. (There would have been some crazy Deja Vu had that all gone through!) As it would transpire the ever expanding workload going into the Final Fantasy XIII trilogy ended up sucking all the attention away from the Remake project which ended up going unofficially cancelled until renewed interest in the next console era gave enough cause to revive it once again. The Final Fantasy 7 Remake we see today has technically been buzzing around in the thoughts of those who want to do it for decades now, and this is essentially their giant effort to get the project out there before they're too old or too dead to start getting it done. What a story, eh?

Now the Remake was never going to just be a straight recreation of the original Final Fantasy 7, as sensible of a prospect as that would be. In the years since it's announcement the world wide fervour sparked up by Final Fantasy 7 had spawned endless spin-off games and even a movie- turning this one entry into a franchise all on it's own. Final Fantasy 7 Remake would have to reflect that, ballooning out in a franchise all of it's own, whilst bringing a lot of these ancillary spin-offs roaring into the modern age to in order to create the definitive string of games that tell the FF7 story. This, of course, being how we ended up with Final Fantasy 7 Remake only covering the first act of the original story, with Rebirth coming soon to tell us the second act, and an unrevealed third game somehow taking the end of that tale and expanding it into something all of it's own.

So what Final Fantasy 7 Remake really represents is a lot more than just a Remake. Even the Capcom remakes in their most transformative, (Such as for Resident Evil 4 Remake) confine themselves to the approximate scope of the original games. They don't stray to change the nature, or size, of the games that they spawn from and use those parameters to polish up the moment-to-moment activity to be as fun, exciting, scary and gorgeous as they can manage. Final Fantasy 7 Remake, on the otherhand, very much wants to turn these into retelling-reimaginations that aren't just 'updates'- but a totally modern recreation. You can go by shot-for-shot as much as you want but you'll run out of direct comparisons pretty quickly, there's so much more game in FF7R than the original- and we're about to decide whether or not that is for better or for worse.

One of the big changes from the original is the way in which Final Fantasy 7 presents it's gameplay. The original game, in keeping with the turn-based style of RPGs in the 90's, was hybrid active/turn-based with a slot-in system of special gems called 'Materia' allowing the player to change what spells are equipped to what character, or to augment certain spells they might already have equipped. Final Fantasy 7 Remake takes the fundamentals of this system and forcibly ejects them into full-action live combat inspired, no doubt, by Tetsuya Nomura's years working on the Kingdom Hearts franchise. (Games in which he ported his reimagination of the Sephiroth fight decades before he got the chance to bring it back to the FF7 franchise.) What results is a genuinely visually spectacular and somewhat freeform combat system that intertwines moment-to-moment reactivity with dodging, guarding and even parrying (with the right Materia) and some light tactical work with giving commands to your team members, synching up their special abilities with your own and creating the illusion of a well-oiled fighting machine through decently light-weight squad command options.

The new stagger system (Which I personally remember seeing first in Final Fantasy XIII, but I'm not exactly the most familiar with all the FF games. It could have been introduced earlier.) presents a bar under the health of enemies that can be filled with certain attacks in order to create a 'stagger state' which incapacitates the enemy and boosts damage received for a certain time- creating a natural flow to long battles of burst damage to defensive play to stagger building. The ATB (Active Time Battle) bar- which you expend in order to use abilities, spells or items- still fills at a live rate as it did in the original game creating a curious through-line to the original style of play and presenting a natural buffer against ability spamming. It's a deceptively complex combat system which feels simple when you get your hands on it and deftly unveils layers of complexity as you become more familiar in a way that many other action fighting games of this age do not. Of course, many of these complexities don't really come into play until the later chapters of the game, against the biggest threats.

I would have to say it is the presentation of Final Fantasy 7 Remake that is perhaps it's biggest gratis: top quality models, animation work and particle popping beauty make the most exciting boss fights stun and wow with cinematic glamour. The new fully orchestral remixes of many of the original's iconic tracks utterly soar, isolating and building upon some of the overpowered layers of the original and injecting whole new worlds of grandiose richness. It's not just about making things louder or prettier, it's about taking advantage of modern technological limits to improve on all aspects of presentation- all to reinforce the mood, themes and world of Final Fantasy's most unforgettable setting. If there were anything this team needed to do justice to, it was the first act set entirely within Midgar- and that is exactly what the team did. And bonus points for how that unified design style in being retroactively applied to all the Final Fantasy 7 sub-games as well- bringing everything under a unified fold. 

Focusing a bit on the world, it is gratifying how good of a job the team did in conveying the sheer scale of the floating city of Midgar and the layers of slums beneath it. Adapting the overhead vignettes from the original game into sprawling adventure hubs packed with various different people, in-world advertising mascots, and all those little details and touch-ups that breath authenticity into play spaces like these. Perhaps the most impressive has to be Night Market and the job that went into turning that into the paradise of commerce and debauchery it was always meant to be in the lore. The cramped streets, the over-stuffed clubs, buzzing neon- they read the assignment and perfectly recreated the market scene from Blade Runner as I can only assume was the intent. Midgar in this form feels tangible, and that is the highest form of praise that any Fantasy world can receive, which might be one of the key reasons why 7 is so beloved.

And as if to rise up to the challenge of making this world alive, the Final Fantasy 7R team went above and beyond to include a surprising amount of interactivity fresh for this remake. You'll find minigames for dart throwing, competitive squats, dancing at the Honey Bee Inn- all innocuous little snippets of play that just change up the routine enough to be memorable breaks from the quality bursts of action. Unfortunately given the nature of the narrative these aren't exactly evenly spread out through the game, and you'll find such side activities pretty much only in the obvious places one would expect to find them. (Chapters in Wall Market and under plate Seven.) As a Like a Dragon obsessive I adore whenever games find the time to take us aside for little diatribes like these, and knowing that enriching the world is a core development pillar of this Remake franchise further cements it as 'on the right track' as far as I'm concerned.

For Yuffie's exclusive and brand-new side campaign, which is part of the 'Intergrade' release of the game, they even went so far as to bring back the old classic 'Fort Condor' strategy game, a total optional from the original. This new quick-RTS recreation of Fort Condor is perhaps the best minigame in the entire game so far, with collectable units and special effect decks and genuinely tough and challenging opponents who only become tougher in Hard Mode- There's some 'Gwent' levels of effort in this little minigame and I surely hope there's a resurgence in Rebirth to expand the boardgame from a minigame into a wider meta game. Seriously, if you never had the chance to give it a shot in the original you simply must find the time to try it out in Yuffie's chapter, it's really something quite special. 

The story of Final Fantasy 7 is something of an ungainly beast in it's virgin state, spanning several hundred short stories and touching characters who's backgrounds don't even occur during the events of the game and who's overall conclusions are wrapped up in a freakin' tie in movie! By expanding out the first act into an entire game all on it's own Tetsuya presents more than enough space to bring in many of these ancillary characters into the fold as well as to expand on the core cast in genuinely strong additions. Kyrie Canaan is plucked right out of an ancillary novel and turned into a reoccurring side character, the members of the Turks are inserted all over the place to better seed their mysterious agenda over the plot and Sephiroth is present pretty much from the first few chapters, albeit as a phantom haunting Cloud's vision and building up his mythos.

But for me the biggest change has been the characterisation of Cloud Strife. In the original Cloud was meant to be little more than an vehicle for the Player, as such all of his speech was handled in non-committal dialogue boxes and there was not really a person behind all the spikey hair. Over the years he developed something of a personality in side adventures as a surly and taciturn anti-hero kind of character, but given that a lot of FF7 side stories were melodramatic drivel those characterisations felt less like evolutions of his presentation and more like derivative 'edgy' trite. This time around Cloud's taciturn and surly traits are inserted into the main game, for a fully voiced protagonist, but presented and written in a manner that makes him a genuine character! They worked a miracle on the boy!

Cloud Strife is brought about less like an edgy enigma who is just too cool to talk to anyone, and more like an emotionally repressed kid who wants to be true to his morals and promises, specifically his promise to protect his childhood friend Tifa, but lacks the emotional tools to quite reach out. He gives his strength when he can, but when Tifa just needs someone to reassure her he's at a loss. It makes for a curious dynamic that all the more heightens the eventual appearance of Aerith around whom Cloud, almost immediately, slips out of his shell. Something about the bubbly flower girl slips right under the boy's emotional shields and teases out the hero we would come to see Cloud as. It's all worlds more refined than the original game and genuinely subtle in a franchise absolutely not known for such a trait!

In terms of the actual story beats themselves, Final Fantasy 7 Remake does hit pretty much everything it needs to in order to present the beginning of this world-spanning tale of eco-terrorists saving the world, leaving just enough space to drown us all in Christian symbology come the third act. But in drawing out this first act so long there are some chapters that sag more than others. The journey through the train graveyard felt like a particularly aimless diversion and they turned the infiltration of Shinra HQ into the entire final act of this game! And fighting the same stock of Shinra enemies gets a bit boring after the tenth hour, believe it or not. But by that same merit, small sections from the original are made better by their expansion. I've already mentioned it before but Wall Market is absolutely a stand-out moment worth lauding.

Of course, the actual finale of the game is perhaps it's most controversial. Part of the purpose of this remake was to try justify the act of changing the events of the original beloved game and Tetsuya actually personified this argument into a ghostly force that plagues the game, keeping characters from meeting others outside of their destined date. (As determined by the original game's canon.) The finale of the game throws players into direct conflict with these spirits, in a representation of breaking the chosen canon and choosing to go one's own path- which has created huge rifts in canon the series will have to face going forward. (Including one giant plot point I won't touch on in this review for fear of spoiling it's impact.) Now I actually applaud this effort to make an event out of changing the story that we know, legitimising the original without kowtowing to it's borders and constraints offers a future for this remake franchise that can now dare to surprise and be different. Rebirth will no doubt present our biggest shift as we'll see the ultimate fate of Aerith, live or die. Which I guess makes this a bit of a 'reboot' in truth, no?

The general cast of FF7 Remake enjoy much more in the realm of development than their past counterparts did, which allow them all to shine as more real characters. Tifa and her feelings about Avalanche becoming more militant and her place within that primarily exists to present a purpose for Cloud to stick around but works double-shift in giving her a quandary to work through. Aerith has her more 'pixie-esque' attributes rounded out by story and connection with Cloud and Tifa, better integrating her as one of the team that everyone would be on board with trying to save in the final act of the game, not just the boy who has become quickly smitten with her. Barret's relationship to Marlene is really all the depth he is afforded, given that the bulk of his story can't occur until the crew leave Midgar- but given that Barret really only served as a mascot anyway, even this bit of humanisation is appreciated. The cast are brought back to life in a mature manner, I was quiet surprised. And with solid performances across the board that maintain that genre-typical anime floatiness to delivery, (the odd 'unnatural sentence structure' or 'speedily delivered line') but sells the drama and personality where necessary.

My one position to gripe with would have to be the characterisation of Sephiroth, a character who has been stuck in all over this game whereas in the original the man was absent throughout the entirety of Act 1. Sephiroth is presented as a character that the audience is already intimately familiar with, delivered with an expectant gravitas and unspoken context which doesn't quite land on newcomers. Heck, even I- who played the original- was unsure as to what he really was meant to be doing popping up everywhere. I mean visions of the man is one thing, but then he literally turns up by the late game doing god knows what and his presence feels almost as aimless as those Kingdom Hearts cameos he is always making. I'm not putting my faith in Rebirth to justify all of those early appearances in hindsight, I think he was overused for the Remake somewhat. 

But even with all that said, I can't bring myself to rag on the new ending for the Remake which I think did a spectacular job justifying a change in direction for the franchise. Doing the JRPG classic and having the heroes battle a concept is exactly what we come to these games for, and defeating the concept of fate in order to change the story of Final Fantasy 7 goes just far enough to make this feel like canonical fan fiction, rather than the watered down fan fiction sensation that 'Crisis Core' leaves you with. From the ending of Final Fantasy 7 the mystique of the unknown has been returned to this remade story and I think that's worth taking significant narrative liberties because I live to be excited, and shocked and heart broken. I loved the ending, and I didn't even find that final fight to be as tedious as I was led to believe. (Then again, I've endured Crisis Core. So maybe my threshold for tedium is just a bit more elastic than most other people's.)

Conclusion

It is little surprise that Final Fantasy 7 Remake was one of the catalysts sparking off this age of remakes and remasters that we currently reside in within the AAA development space. It is a masterclass in resurrection and renewal which gives us a Final Fantasy 7 vision better than most other action games of today. Tetsuya Nomura seems to have been building up his entire career to this moment and in doing so delivered a product that did more than just justice to the original game, it elevated Remake to the status of a bonafide masterpiece! I would not call the product flawless, however, and I'm certain that future entries have ample room to keep things fresh and improve upon some of those dangling story threads- but none of my issues prevent me from awarding a Recommendation solidly on Final Fantasy 7 Remake's chest with an arbitrary review grade of A. A simple must play for Final Fantasy fans looking to keep the magic alive. I can't wait to see where we go next...

Tetsuya's Nomura's dream stretches on

 Somebody stop this man

Why is Final Fantasy 7 Remake?

 I know a twist is coming, I just don't know where...

So we all know what the Final Fantasy 7 remake is by now, don't we? But can we sit back and truly say we know why the Final Fantasy 7 Remake is? Because right now we've lined ourselves in the path of a full blown trilogy of these remake products and I've got not earthly clue how we got here in the first place. I mean I can assume. I guess that Tetsuya Nomura is a snot-noosed punk who played FF7 back in the day, fell in love with it, and been begging to do anything with that world for years now. Why else would Cloud and Sephiroth both feature throughout Kingdom Hearts without having any actual ties to the core narrative? I'm serious, those two seem to be off having their own conflict throughout the entirety of the first Kingdom Hearts and Sora quite literally plays no part in that storyline whatsoever, it almost feels like a fan edit of FF7 got inserted in the script, and in hindsight I'm pretty sure that was Tetsuya's doing.

I ask this now having actually had the chance to play the thing in the wake of the Final Fantasy 7 Remake Intergrade making it's lumbering way to the Steam ecosystem meaning Square is finally willing to accept my money. Oh, thank you so much Square Enix; how very gracious of you! And no: I haven't gotten over the absolute extortionate pricing that the higher ups have decided on for their godawful PC port. I'm serious, this port if a dog's dinner and these absolute clowns think it's totally reasonable charging £70 for it? Thank god that for the first few days of release the game had to be discounted to sensible pricing. That shouldn't have to be the case but I'll happily take that infinitesimal win if it's offered, I need anything they'll give me. Hey; maybe the point of FF7R is to expose greedy corporate machinations in the real world in order to parallel Shinra! Maybe Square Enix is a less flashy evil megacorp trying to strip the planet dry for it's own sordid longevity. Seem legit.

But seriously, I've wondered for a while what exactly it is that makes FF7 the one worthy of a reboot. I think Tetsuya Nomura isn't exactly an FF7 isolationist; he's worked with the franchise for long enough after all, almost made FF15 and has Squall prominently in Kingdom Hearts as well. (Although Squall actually is integrated into the narrative in his 'Leon' guise, unlike Cloud who is literally just there as fan service.) It's not as though FF7 is a flawless game by any stretch of the imagination. For example, despite being just one game originally, it's narrative is practically dripping with 'And then' syndrome where it feels like events are just jumping out at you with little to no build up and the player is just dragged along for the ride. Guys in hoods? Yeah, they're big monster people now. Who are also Sephiroths. But not the real Sephirtoth because he's in a big vat. Or not really because that's the... Genova... Vincent... Cloud is actually... what even is going on anymore? 

I think the Materia system the game implemented is inspired and remains one of the most lightweight but enjoyable to mess around with magic systems in a Final Fantasy to date. (At least it doesn't take half a game to be fully explained like some of the later Final Fantasy's I could think of.) The monster designs are wild and interesting, but that's not exactly away from the norm for a Final Fantasy game anyway. (Character design is what FF does best.) Cloud is a silent Protagonist, and so his input to the greatness of the game is minimal. Maybe it's the core cast, Tifa and Aertih and Barret and Yuffie and Red XIII. They are classics all in their own right, even if Yuffie generally gets left out of character line-ups even though she's my favourite. (Really feeling the disrespect there!) But FF6 is sometimes hailed as a better game and FF4 is said to have the best narrative. So what perfect point in history does FF7 hit to be the chosen recipient of a remake franchise?

Perhaps, and not to take anything away from the individual successes of Final Fantasy 7; maybe it's the time and framing of the game. Remember that the original FF7 hit the presses at a time where the tech behind gaming was improving dramatically and FF7's visual style, though easily trounced today, was a revolution back then with it's in-battle models. Nintendo had jealously guarded the FF licence before 7, at which point the team had to end their partnership in order to take advantage of the new disk-based tech that Sony was rocking when Nintendo weren't; meaning that 7 was also the point where a totally new wave of fans were introduced to the franchise. Maybe the popularity and success of this game is a product of circumstance as much as the actual substance of the software. Yet even saying that; I find it hard to dismiss that there is something timeless about Final Fantasy 7 more so than a lot of the others.

Maybe it's the narrative and the way it tells a story that can always be related to; the struggle against climate catastrophe. I mean seriously; if the strip away all of the stuff about Genova and cloning technology, at the end of the day MAKO is a stand-in for mother earth and every way it's abused over the course of the narrative is an analogy for the overall death of our ecosystem. I do wonder as to why the FF7 writers chose to divorce personal responsibility from the equation by making Shinra the big evil bad guys running the big factories; but I suppose it must be difficult to provide nuanced multi-layered commentary on an anime RPG game where most problems are solved by beating it up with a massive sword. Either way, it's a moral with legs which is as relevant today as it was a near generation ago.

And finally, I think that Tetsuya Nomura is fronting this remake because he wants to fundamentally change the events of Final Fantasy 7. I had a theory on this but it's only been cemented now I've actually played the game; I think all the narrative changes aren't just about making the story sing smoother (although a lot of them do deftly manage that as well) I think the point to establish a distinction between this Final Fantasy 7 and the original. The stepped-up flashbacks that seem forceful rather than just memories drifting into Cloud's mind, the prevalence of Sephiroth who seems to be leaning heavily on the coming twist with almost overt foreboding, and then the strange premonitions about things that Cloud should have no way of seeing. What about seeing Aerith's memories out of the blue? Or, more to the point, crying randomly during one flash whilst in her presence. What is Cloud remembering? Is it maybe what's due to happen to her according to the events of the original FF7? And if so, does this awareness prelude a coming shift from what we expect into a completely different direction entirely? I think so.

Whatever the case, Final Fantasy 7 Remake is a remarkably fun action adventure title that retells one of the most classic RPG's of all time for a totally new audience; marrying a fun story with a new standard for game design. I had my misgivings, but I should have known that Tetsuya really knows how to direct games of this style and thus probably knew exactly what he was doing. Just so long as no one let's him make a card-based version of the FF series, leading to a Chain of Memories style situation, I think we can stand to let him mess around with FF7 to his heart's content. Even if his restless heart won't be content until he's literally remade every piece of ancillary content around FF7 from the games to the spin offs to bloody Advent Children. The man is insatiable. 

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.